Alcea is pleased to announce the completion of the merging of Fast BugTrack and Alcea Fast IssueTrack, into a single comprehensive tool, called “FIT”.

General / Branding Questions

Q: Why are you doing this?

We wanted to accomplish the following

• Move to a common brand and image for our solutions.
• Simplify development, building releases, testing, documentation, and training.
• Create a framework from which we can release many new templates and provide additional modules for our customers.

This is just the beginning of a very big strategy we are putting in place now… We are planning for great things down the road.

Q: Why use the puzzle piece for the logo?

The puzzle piece, combined with “FIT” represents many things:

Micro View: Showing how a team can be brought together to collaborate through our tool.

Macro View: Showing how many teams and processes can be tracked from a single instance of our product.

Marketing View: Showing how our tool can be customized to FIT your needs.

Features and Functionality

Q: I am currently using Fast BugTrack or Alcea Fast IssueTrack. What will I notice that is different after migrating?

The full list of enhancements and features are available on our upgrades page. Your users will see many new improvements, including being able to add attachments dynamically, other interface improvements, as well as performance improvements. If you are still using the default logo from Fast BugTrack or Alcea Fast IssueTrack, you will see a new FIT logo. There are instructions on our site if you want to continue running with the old logo, but we think you’ll be happy with the new logo.

A major change in the system is something that we call “Tracks”. Tracks allow a customer to run multiple systems from a single instance of the software.

Q: Tell me more about “tracks”.

A single installation of FIT can run multiple tracking systems. These tracking systems can be tied together using almost any field in our system.

The development team at Alcea is currently running 3 tracks:

• A track for our internal bug/feature tracking system – based on the FIT | BugTrack template integrated with the FIT | TestSpec module
• A track for our task management system – used to track team members' objectives and action items. These are primarily non software development tasks and include website, documentation, marketing, training, planning, budgeting – based on the FIT | IssueTrack template.
• A track to maintain our list of hosted customers and our servers – also based on the FIT IssueTrack template, but heavily customized in terms of fields captured.

We will be adding additional tracks to our own system as we get time. The advantage of the FIT solution is that users have a single user id, password, email address, and then can have separate profiles for different tracks. This means that access can be controlled on a user by user basis to each track. While it sounds complex, it means that user administration across tracks is very easy.

Q: Anything else interesting about tracks?

We have created a way to allow our customers to build templates based on how they have configured their own system. This allows customers to run many different, potentially integrated systems, using any of a number of templates. We have assisted a number of customers in the past with sending their configuration to friends who have also wanted to try our system. You now have the means to select which portions of your system you want included in a template, which you can then share with others.

Q: Anything else new?

We have completed work on Fast TestSpec, a template that extends our current bug tracking tool to also capture test cases and test runs. We have been using it extensively for the past 3 months, and feel that following a test process has greatly improved our development quality. Customers can upgrade their existing systems to this system for $1199 before December, 2006. The regular price to add this to a system afterwards is $1599. Complete information about FTS can be seen here.

Q: Modules?

We have completed an ActiveDirectory / LDAP module, that allows sites to integrate FIT with their corporate authentication systems. The LDAP module will be $799, and includes 2 hours of installation support. Our framework also allows us to provide custom changes and features for customers. If you would like discuss special requirements, please contact us.

Pricing

Q: How does pricing for tracks work?

You can activate as many tracks as you like on a demo basis, without impacting your current system. The means that the new tracks will behave like a trial instance of FIT and you will simply be limited to storing 25 items in the system. For trial / playing purposes, you can create the track and restrict access to yourself, without any impact to other users. Pricing for a track is 50% of the cost of the base license pricing.

Q: Any other changes?

We are now treating the database functionality as a module – allowing any size system to add this for $1599.

Q: Will I have to pay to upgrade to FIT from Fast BugTrack / Alcea Fast IssueTrack

As with all upgrades, they are available for free for all of our clients with current support agreements. If you are unsure, please contact us, and we can ensure that your license is valid.

For hosted customers, support is always included, and they will all be upgraded to FIT at a time that is convenient for them.

Upgrading to FIT

Q: How do I do it?

It is very stratight-forward and full details are located here. Please read about key details. Out of date and database customers must request a new key.

Q: Will you be releasing new upgrades for Fast BugTrack or Alcea Fast IssueTrack?

No. All new releasing for bug tracking and issue tracking will be made through FIT. There will be no new releases of Fast BugTrack or Alcea Fast IssueTrack beyond 6.05. Think of FIT as being version 7.0 of both of these products.

Hosted Customers

Q: How will this affect hosted customers?

All hosted customers will be brought up to the latest version of FIT when it is convenient for them. Please contact us and let us know when you would like your server upgraded.

Q: Any other changes planned?

We are constantly upgrading servers and hosting capability to bring our customers the best possible FIT experience. We have a plan for auto-fail over of servers in the event of hardware failures, as well as adding hourly and weekly back-up capabilities to our existing daily backups. An active monitoring system will be online soon. Our goal is to improve uptime from 99.7% to 99.9%.

 

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