CSup, Thank you for the detailed feedback. Our plan is to evolve cnArcher to enforce policies and installation criteria so that the WISP has more visibility and control of the installs. This is inline with some of the feedback below. We will also look at how we can integrated with cnMaestro to streamline this.
Please see more comments inline.
@CSup wrote:
Ok number of things observed on latest version with 15.2 firmware.
1. (IMPORTANT) Default should be to recommend upgrade to latest version (Recommended version), if an installer clicks next and the latest version != installed version, it should ask "do you want to install latest version before continue, highly recommended yes/no"
Will add this request to the v1.2 list.
2. (BREAKING) Alternative IP should be automatically enabled, once again i lost access during the install, i had to login with browser and turn on Alternative IP, that way the dhcp my network gives the SM when it connects doesn't kill the app connection, this is a big issue, and without it breaks the install flow, if you don't want to make it the default for every install of cnArcher make it configurable via the settings menu of the app/qr.
We are not able to recreate this. Alternate IP is automatically enabled as part of configuring network settings. Can you send us the debug logs when this happens? Also, when you start, is the SM in factory default configuration?
3. (BREAKING) After doing the alignment during the install process it takes a LONG time to restore the channels, i actually logged in via web to check what was taking so long and only part of the 5.4 channels had been restored, waited another 2-3 minutes and the radio connected to network and went to link test page, when i went to the radio page on my browser i observed 5.4-5.7 was enabled as per my settings but that random channels were missing from the scan list.
We can recreate this. Happens with longer scan lists. It will be fixed.
4. (MINOR) During the upgrade to 15.2 the app started saying "please reconnect to sm wifi, waiting for reboot, please reconnect to sm wifi", it seemed like perhaps the timer for the error was too short as i think 15.2 takes a bit to startup after upgrade, eventually the radio came up (was monitoring via ping on laptop via the wifi dongle), and then i clicked ok again and it found the radio was upgraded, and continued with install was quite annoying, perhaps better way to handle vs just throwing an, retry message or just extend the wait time before error.
We don’t see this, but will review how long the app waits. Again, it is useful to know if you are starting from factory default configuration or not.
5. (MINOR) On the blackberry we were using today (Android) we had to disable the 4g on the phone to get access to the radio, tried both with automatic config and manual wifi config with an ip set on the wifi profile... when we disabled 4g it seemed to work, not sure if this is just this version of android/model phone but was a head-scratcher, think it may have been some form of "smart routing" that saw no internet via wifi, so was disabling the 169.254.1.0/24 route because the 4g had internet.
Newer versions on Android on some phones will not use the Wi-Fi connection if it is not able to detect internet connection. We will add a warning asking users to try and turn off 4G.
6. (IMPORTANT) Ability would greatly be appreciated to set an "auto-report email" and that once the installer clicks "done" at the end of install the report would just get sent to that email address, vs having to use a "share" for each install, as the share method makes it seem optional, and I can imagine most of our networks want these reports to be sent as a requirement.
We are planning to upload the installation summary to cnMaestro so the administrator has access to details of every installation. Will this meet your requirement (as an alternate to automated emails)?
7. (MINOR) Add ability to require X pictures, before an installer can click done, maybe in settings just something that says "Require X pictures per install" that way at end if the installer clicks done, and forgot to take a picture it will say something like "pictures required to submit report", would really be nice QOL adjustment.
This will be part of the "Installation Criteria" feature, but no dates for this yet.
8. (MINOR) The report should really have start and end timestamps converted to readable date/times instead of sending bare unix timestamps
This will be fixed before we release v1.1.
9. (IMPORTANT) Would be really nice if the AP-Eval could be included in the report, so we can see in the office if the installer really did pick the best option, or if their were alternatives during the install.
Good point. We will add this in the next release (v1.2)
10. (MINOR) Subject of report email (auto or share) should really have a title like say Installation Summary - Customer Name - ESN, so when it comes time for the management to look up a device they can see right away from the titles who the install was for instead of looking through whats basically a config dump.
Will add this to the next release (v1.2)
11. (IMPORTANT) Link Test mode/throughputs are only showing the last test I think, we did 3 tests (1 extra and 2 bridged, and only 1 showed up in the report), also would be good if the app had a setting to set what the default link test type should be.
Will add link test type to the next release. Also, instead of a setting for default link test, app will remember the last one used. Is that OK?
12. (IMPORTANT) Possibly making an option to have either a dumped report like it is now or a bit nicer formatted html report, as the current report really gives me flashbacks of the standard apeval page, no reason the report can't be set as an option to be html formatted to look and be more visible to the company reviewers, would also allow for things like not having 1 link test spread onto 4 lines
Will wait for more feedback on this. While it is easy to convert the contents to HTML, some customers may want to scan the email and dump it into a database, which is easier if it is text and the format does not keep changing as we try to make it look nicer. We will definitely have a GUI display once we start sending the install summary to cnMaestro.
13. (MINOR) Link Test Modulation Down in the report shows as blank.
Downlink modulation is not yet available on the SM to read via SNMP, but it is planned for future.
I Know the above is a lot of complaints, but i must say the latest beta is the first time i've made it through af ull install with cnArcher, and its really starting to shape up, but its got some small glaring issues that once cleaned up/fixed really could be amazing, and most of them seem to be small easily fixed issues.
I appreciate your patience, especially with the VLAN issue and having to wait for both 15.2 release as well as the ability in the app to upgrade to 15.2. Please keep the feedback coming.