WATCH A SHORT VIDEO OF THE NEW FEATURES
The April 2017 release of Xirrus Management System – Cloud (XMS-Cloud) is now available. This release includes Presence Analytics (beta), dynamic AP groupings, EasyPass templates for CommandCenter and sophisticated multicast control. In addition, this release includes group level authentication based on Microsoft Azure groups for Office 365 users.
Presence Analytics (Beta)
We are introducing Presence Analytics dashboard that provides insight into the behavior of Wi-Fi users. Without identifying specific users, you can gain insight into new and repeat visitors and the average time they spent in a location over a customizable period (sliding 30-day window over the past 1 year). This is a beta release of the functionality, with more functionality to come in future releases. We are interested in your feedback on the feature – you can provide via the ‘Give us Feedback’ link in the cloud portal.
Presence insights enable a number of use cases, including understanding the number of guests at different times at events such as public meetings, school graduations, or trade shows; optimizing security staff scheduled in public venue locations; understanding the impact of marketing promotions (e.g. a 50% off offer on Wednesday), adjust retail staffing levels based on numbers of shoppers (busiest day of the week, peak time), etc.
From the Reports top level menu, select Analytics (Beta), provide a name for the visualization, select the appropriate insight type and date range, then select Add to create the chart. You can create new insight charts or access previously created visualizations to compare.
You can deliver insights across an entire location or a specific area by selecting a group of APs.
Dynamic Visibility With Access Point Groups
APs can be grouped together into logical units (e.g. East wing, Keynote hall, Science building, 3rdfloor etc.) to better manage the Wi-Fi network. The groups can be dynamically created and are highly flexible – APs may belong to different profiles within a group or a given AP can belong to multiple groups.
Create groups from the Access Points tab from the My Network dashboard. Select the new Groups tile and click on New Group to create and assign APs to the group. You can then use groups to filter information in the My Network dashboard, Reports, and Analytics to provide more granular visibility.
Simplify EasyPass Portal Deployment With Templates
EasyPass portal templates can now be pushed from CommandCenter to quickly provision access services for MSPs or multi-site businesses. EasyPass Portals can be deployed in seconds by pushing templates to the domains and customizing them to the new network.
Create an EasyPass portal template at the CommandCenter level with the desired default parameters. Push the template to a specific domain by selecting Deploy to Domain from the dropdown menu of the portal you created. Go into the domain to customize the portal as appropriate and associate with a given SSID.
Enable Microsoft Office365 SSO For Specific User Groups
EasyPass now supports group synchronization with Microsoft Active Directory within Azure enabling group level Single Sign-On (SSO) for Office365 users. Administrators can enable SSO for specific user groups such as Marketing, Teachers, Engineers, Support, Administrators or other such organizational units within Azure.
Other Enhancements
- Control Multicast traffic – Optimize network performance by isolating multicast to specific parts of your network. Multicast is used for services such as Chromecast. Select a specific profile and from the Show Advanced option, choose Optimization. Within the Traffic option, choose appropriate Multicast Isolation option, either by each AP or by allowing multicast among neighboring APs
- Gather Email With One-Click Portal – EasyPass One-Click Access can be configured to gather mandatory email addresses from guests. The guests have choice to opt-in for marketing emails when they provide email addresses.
- Default Marketing Opt-in Changed – The marketing opt-in for EasyPass Guest Portals, which was previously turned on by default, is now disabled by default to comply with EU regulations.