Update List – Visual-Guard 2024.6

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The Visual Guard 2024.6 release introduces a wide range of enhancements focused on performance, security, usability, and modernization. These updates strengthen the platform’s reliability while improving administrative efficiency and integration with the latest technologies.

Web Console

👥 User Search – Inactive User Enhancement

The user search interface has been improved with a more intuitive date picker control for filtering inactive users. This enhancement ensures smoother interaction, more accurate date selection, and an overall better user experience when managing inactive accounts.

🛡️ Repository Configuration – Write Access Validation

A new write access validation step has been added when saving repository configurations. This feature checks user permissions in advance, preventing runtime errors caused by missing access rights. If saving fails due to insufficient permissions, the system now provides clear feedback, helping administrators quickly identify and resolve configuration issues.

📁 Repository Configuration – Validation Messages

The license and folder permission validation messages have been refined to provide more accurate and informative feedback when configuring existing repositories. These improvements ensure administrators receive clearer guidance during setup, reducing confusion and improving overall configuration reliability.

Identity Server

🔐 Password Policy – Validation Handling

Password policy enforcement has been enhanced to provide more detailed and user-friendly validation. The system now delivers differentiated responses for warnings, failures, and grace logins, offering clearer guidance to users. This update improves feedback clarity when passwords do not meet the defined policy criteria, ensuring stronger compliance and a smoother user experience.

🏷️ UI Label Update

The label “Configure Web User Interface” has been renamed to “Configure Identity Server” to provide clearer and more consistent terminology. This change helps administrators quickly identify the correct configuration section and aligns with Visual Guard’s current architecture and naming standards.

🎨Active Menu Item Highlighting

The Identity Server menu now visually highlights the active section, ensuring consistency with the Web Console interface. This enhancement improves navigation clarity, allowing administrators to easily identify which configuration area they are currently working in.

🛡️ Repository Configuration – Write Access Validation

A pre-save validation has been introduced to check write permissions for configuration files and directories before saving. This enhancement improves system robustness and provides clear user feedback if insufficient permissions are detected, preventing save failures and streamlining repository setup.

WinConsole

📂 Configuration Export

After a configuration file is exported, the containing folder now opens automatically, allowing administrators to quickly access and verify the exported file. This small but effective enhancement improves workflow efficiency and user convenience during configuration management.

👥 Users – Selection Improvements

The user management interface now includes direct navigation links for selected users, enabling administrators to quickly access user details and perform actions without extra steps. This enhancement streamlines administrative workflows and enhances overall usability.

📘 Help Documentation Update

The Help menu has been updated to open the latest online documentation directly at docs.visual-guard.com. This ensures users always have access to up-to-date guides, tutorials, and reference materials for smoother onboarding and troubleshooting.

🛡️ Settings – Security Audit for Identity Server and Workflow Impersonation

A new security audit mechanism has been introduced to validate user permissions for Identity Server and Workflow impersonation. The audit:

Verifies role-based access rights
Logs insufficient privileges for better traceability
Displays warnings or recommendations when required rights are missing

This enhancement strengthens administrative security and ensures proper authorization before impersonation actions are performed.

Engine and Core Components

🧩 Trace Formatting

Trace logs have been enhanced to include detailed class and method names, providing clearer diagnostic information for developers and administrators. This improvement simplifies troubleshooting and helps in pinpointing issues more efficiently during debugging and support analysis.

🪪 Authentication Logging – Request ID

A unique Request ID has been added to authentication logs, enabling better correlation across components and simplifying debugging in distributed environments. This improvement enhances traceability and makes it easier to follow authentication flows end-to-end.

⏱️ Craft Connection Timer Logging

Trace logs for connection timing have been improved by including operation names alongside elapsed times. This enhancement increases trace readability and helps administrators and developers quickly identify performance bottlenecks during connection-related operations.

🧰 IdentityServerClient – IdentityModel Reference Removal

The outdated IdentityModel 5.1 dependency has been removed from the VGIdentityServerClient assembly, simplifying deployment and reducing potential security risks. This cleanup ensures a leaner, more secure build and improves overall compatibility with modern libraries.

📦 NuGet Package Updates

Core NuGet dependencies have been updated to their latest secure versions to enhance stability, performance, and security. Updated packages include:

System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager
System.Data.SqlClient
System.Drawing.Common
System.Security.Permissions
System.Security.Principal.Windows

These updates ensure improved compatibility with modern .NET environments and mitigate potential vulnerabilities.

Bug Fixes

⚙️Engine – Profile Role Handling

Issues related to profile attribute synchronization during deployment have been resolved. The update ensures that profile attributes are correctly validated and migrated between repositories, maintaining consistency and reliability in role and profile management across environments.

⏳ OTP Expiration Message

User feedback has been improved for expired OTP validations, providing a clearer and more informative message when an OTP is used after its expiration time. This enhancement helps users understand the reason for failed authentication and improves the overall MFA experience.

🪪 Repository License Validation

A new validation check now detects and alerts users when configuring expired or unlicensed SQL repositories. The system displays a clear error message, helping administrators quickly identify and resolve licensing issues before proceeding with configuration.

🚫 Passwordless Accounts Without MFA License

A new restriction has been implemented to ensure repositories without an MFA license cannot create passwordless user accounts. This enforcement maintains security compliance and ensures passwordless authentication is only available in properly licensed environments.

🌐 AD Domain Connectivity

Error handling for Active Directory domain connectivity has been improved. When the domain is unavailable, the system now displays “Domain Down” instead of the misleading “Invalid Username” message. This enhancement provides clearer diagnostics and helps administrators quickly identify connectivity issues.

☁️ Azure AD User Login

Login handling has been improved for new repositories that do not yet have Entra (Azure AD) domains configured. The system now gracefully manages these cases, preventing login errors and ensuring a smoother initial setup experience.

General Enhancements

🔐 MFA Service – Success Message Update

The confirmation message displayed after a successful Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) process has been revised for improved clarity and user experience. This update ensures users receive a clear, concise acknowledgment of successful authentication, enhancing overall usability and consistency across the MFA workflow.

🔐MFA Template Variables

Three new template variables have been added to enhance MFA email and HTML templates, offering greater flexibility and compatibility:

{%VGMFALINK%} – Inserts the authentication link
{%VGMFALINKHTML%} – Inserts an HTML-formatted authentication link
{%VGMFAOTP%} – Inserts the one-time password (OTP)

These enhancements improve email rendering across major clients like Outlook and include updated documentation within the WinConsole for easier implementation.

⚙️Menu Options for Global Policy Editing

New quick-access menu options have been added to allow administrators to edit Global Policies and MFA Policies directly from the Repository and Application menus. This enhancement streamlines policy management, reducing navigation steps and improving overall administrative efficiency.

🔒Azure ARM Update – 2024.6

The Azure Resource Manager (ARM) deployment templates and related components have been fully updated for Visual Guard 2024.6. This includes refreshed application packages and configuration files, ensuring smooth deployment within the latest Azure environments. Compatibility with current Azure services has been verified, and end-to-end SaaS trial deployments have been successfully validated for stability and performance.

🧾 Enhanced Logging and Diagnostics

This release delivers improved logging, error handling, and diagnostic clarity across all Visual Guard components. These enhancements make it easier for administrators and developers to trace issues, analyze behavior, and maintain system stability, ensuring faster troubleshooting and more transparent system monitoring.

🗄️ Repository Configuration Enhancements

Repository configuration workflows have been enhanced for both SQL Server and Oracle backends, offering a more reliable and user-friendly setup experience. These improvements streamline configuration steps, strengthen validation, and ensure smoother integration across diverse database environments.

🔒 Reinforced Security and Compliance

Security has been strengthened across the platform through enhanced validation mechanisms, permission checks, and dependency updates. These improvements ensure greater protection against misconfigurations and vulnerabilities, maintaining Visual Guard’s commitment to robust, compliant, and secure operations.

Visual Guard 2024.6 introduces significant upgrades focused on logging, authentication, and MFA enhancements, alongside a wide range of usability and stability improvements across the Web Console, WinConsole, and Identity Server.

This release also strengthens security compliance through updated dependencies, improved audit mechanisms, and enhanced validation checks for key repository and identity operations—ensuring a more secure, efficient, and reliable Visual Guard experience