Introduction

A few enhancements to the look and feel or Auctionmarts are released in April. In addition to this new Newline windows server services have been released to improve security measures and make our software distribution and support more efficient in line with industry best practice.

Auctionmarts.com

Winning Bid Emails

The process for sending winning bid emails was simultaneous with the last bid on the lot. However, on occasion the timing was such that a winning bid email went to the pen ultimate bidder who pressed bid almost exactly the same time as the winner bidder. The process has been split so that 1 minute after the last bid and the winner is decided an email is sent to the winner. This plugs a potential loophole.

Company Logos

Newline has standardised the format for company logos displayed on Auctionmarts. These in the first release were too small and not clear enough in all instances so this has been improved to show case our customers brand on Auctionmarts.

No of Bids on a Lot

On the lot drill down to detail page we now show how many bids have been placed on the lot.

Further enhancements planned to provide drill down data on value and time of bids.

Multi Stream & Raspberry Pi

WIP. A product to provide multiple camera angle streams with a hardware camera device to be installed in the ring to give buyers different views of the sale.

Sale Tiles

Formatting of the sale tiles adjusted slightly so company logo, name, and address details line up better on the auctions page.

CDN (Content Delivery Network)

Improvements and investment in the Azure infrastructure and CDN for streaming sales.

OSE (Online Sale Editor)

Compress Images Utility

With one or more pictures for every online lot storage of pictures is using up disk space. There is a utility in the system to compress images after the sale so historical storage is much smaller and more efficient. Saving disk space on your NAS drive or hard drive.

Importing Picture Bug Fix

When importing individual pictures there seems to be an occasional threading issue where an image can be imported/displayed twice. The bug is patched and fixed.

Enhanced Security

Newline as part of the larger Jonas group benefits from security advice and a monthly security score card penetration test to monitor our software security and recommend best practices to stay ahead of the curve. As part of a systems review Newline have rewritten several underlying services used by parts of NAS to send data. Emails; Texts and CRM contact data. More information provided below.

Email Service

Newline have written a new email service for emailing from Auctionmarts (the winning, outbid and registration email messages) and from NAS for emailing seller statements, buyer invoices, marketing, etc. Best practice internet security improvements from Microsoft and other significant providers have reduced the ability to send email via SMTP (a method used for sending emails for many years now). Our new service can still use SMTP for providers that still allow this method but also works with more up-to-date and secure protocols increasing being adopted by email providers.

Email Validation Service

Newline has developed a free service validating email addresses and their MX records. Down the line Newline can extend this service to validate an email address further using 3^rd party APIs - for example validate Richie@newlineasp.com isn't a valid email address.

Text Service

Newline have written a new texting service to provide enhanced features at a competitive rate. Future proofed with the latest security protocols and best practice.

CRM Service

Newline have written a new CRM service to adopt best practice and the latest security protocols. There are improvements to moving the history of sellers and buyers trading records from HQ to the mobile CRM and for the calculation of longitude and latitude based on the postcode of the customer. There is also improvements for postcode validation to ensure the postcode is valid.

Service Monitor

Newline has a service monitor which can automatically deploy / automatically update Newline Microservices such as Nas.Email.Delivery, Nas.SMS.Delivery, Nas.CRM.DataSync, Nas.CRM.History