SimpleHelp Community

XYZ is accessing this machine

#1

There appear to have been a small but important change in v5.4.x compared to v5.3.x around this prompt. In the older version, this only appeared when you connected to the screen. If you connected to the terminal or diagnostics, it wasn’t displayed. This meant you could furtle around the backend (e.g., grab some logs, update some files) without the user’s knowledge.

In v5.4.x the pop-up appears no matter how you’ve connected. I know this feature can be turned off but it’s a global setting.

It’s a bit swings and roundabouts whether you want to know you’re just diagnosing some fault. I guess we’ll just have to change our procedures to let them know via Teams and to just minimise the window.

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#2

Good to know. Thanks for the heads up.

#3

Having the ability to connect in the background to collect logs, deposit files for future sessions, run tasks etc without the user knowing you are there is indispensable.

#4

I’d tend to agree. Let me just double check this now.

#5

This functionality is essential - SimpleHelp should NOT be changing existing functionality without consultation with their customers. We pay for this and have invested in our software and procedures, it appears that we now need to change our procedures (for the worse) just because SimpleHelp decided to change functionality. Too many software vendors do this and its infuriating.

SimpleHelp - please take note.

#6

Just checked in v5.4.4 and yes, the prompt is still displayed when accessing in any method. I personally would like there to be two options here. One for a remote session where you can see the screen and another for the other tasks (file transfer, diagnostics & terminal) so it can be configured to work as before.

NOTE: it’s probably a little more complex because if one establishes a terminal window without the client prompt but then switch to the display, it needs to turn the prompt on.

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#7

Odd. I thought this was always the case. I wonder if it was/is broken and nobody really took note of it?
I always thought it was weird that the user got notified even when not having control of their screen/keyboard. I can also see that in some scenarios it would have to notify the user anytime something was done with their machine.

But I do like your option @Rob_Nicholson. It would be convenient to use the diagnostics without interrupting the user.

Sounds like a good feature request to support.

#8

Very possibly - one can argue both ways about informing a client if you’re accessing their computer. If it’s a work computer, then less worried but if it’s a home computer, I’d always let them know.

#9

The presence dialogue should have been appearing in non-view sessions as per user request long ago.

We’re aware many users including yourself @Steven_Johns, enjoyed being able to connect in non-View sessions silently, and if customer concerns are mostly related to screen viewing I can see that being easier on remote machine users and Technicians. We’ve got a development ticket on finer grained controls on what causes the presence to show (on a per machine basis, on session types etc).

For anyone wanting to add their suggestions and experience of real-world use cases to the ticket, send these to support@simple-help.com (ideally put SH-3282 in the title so I can identify them quicker :wink: ) and I’ll get them appended.

#10

@Chris_Bonn I for one have sent an email in.

#11

Aside: I always wondered how SimpleHelp support tickets worked out which ticket I was replying to as the ticket number isn’t in the title.

#12

I use ‘ticket’ pretty loosely to mean ‘whichever thing that’s tracking the status of an issue’: Our email system handily organises exchanges into ‘conversations’ which can correlate to one or more items in our dev JIRA board. When I say ‘ticket’, then, that can either be the ‘conversation’ I’m tracking through to resolution, or the dev item that George or Antony are working on.

In this case the code is the JIRA ticket I’m gathering feedback into, to inform the actual development job.

#13

Hey @Chris_Bonn,
Did this every go anywhere, is it a “feature” that that is going to be added to a future update? I don’t see it listed as a change in the release notes of 5.4.5, how far down the dev line has it got?

More granular control and configuration of this is definitely not a bad thing; even if it was broken down into:
Remote Support - presence dialogue visible
Remote Access - presence dialogue visible
“Diagnostic Access” (File Transfer, Diagnostic & Terminal Mode) - presence dialogue hidden.

Having the access modes separate thus and not being able to switch from one to the other without closing and re-connecting to the client which would then in turn provide the appropriate presence dialogue state.

#14

I’ve not heard anything. Couple of months have passed now and still not been able to have the option to silently connected to a device in the background is annoying.

#15

We’ve been focussed on priority fixes and general stability over new features for 5.4: This will be unlikely to change until 5.5 is ready to go in January. The ticket’s still in the queue and will be picked up once it makes sense to pivot from fixes back to features.

#16

Thanks for the update Chris.
I look forwards to hearing about the progress of 5.5 in January.

#17

Perhaps if the message said “Techician XYZ is accessing your machine remotely for diagnostics - your screen is not visible to technician”

I never connect before getting written permission and also ping them just before connecting if during that users “business hours”.

#18

Hey Chris,

I understand 5.4.x and the appropriate fixes are more of a priority, but I was just wondering what the timeline is looking like for the release of 5.5, and whether or not more granularity of this discussion has made it into the feature set for 5.5, or whether it is being pushed further down the dev line.

I also like @Doug_Steinschneider’s suggestion for the diagnostic message.