Comet Backup is an excellent tool for MSPs who manage file backups for their clients. By using CheckCentral and Comet Backup together, you can have a clear and easy view of your client backups without having to wade through mountains of email notifications. This guide provides details on setting up Checks for Comet Backup notification emails.

Setting Up the Check Schedule

1. On your CheckCentral dashboard, click the "New Check" link.
2. Give the Check a name. It can be whatever you like, but we would recommend something like: {comet username}: {protected item name}. For this example, the name will be "User01: Documents"
3. Choose an existing Check Group to add this check to, or create a new one if you like, by clicking "New Group."
4. For this guide, we'll assume this Comet Protected Item has a schedule assigned to it. In order for CheckCentral to notify you when the Check is overdue (e.g. if the Protected Item didn't run as scheduled, or got hung up on its last run), you'll need to configure how often you expect the email to come in. Typically you'll set the "Emails are expected every" values to match the schedule on your Protected Item. In our example, the Protected Item is set to run every day at 9am, so we'll set this to 1 Day(s).
5. Notice that there's nowhere to assign the time of day that the email is expected. This is because CheckCentral will automatically adjust the expected time based on when the last email arrived. If your Protected Item runs at 9am and finishes at 9:15am today, then the next email will be expected at 9:15am tomorrow. Since the amount of time a backup takes to complete can vary day-to-day, you can configure the Check to only notify you if the email is late by more than a certain amount of time. We'll leave it at the default of 30 minutes for this example, which means that you won't get an "Overdue" notification until 9:45am tomorrow. This allows an extra 30 minutes for the backup to complete before any action is taken.
6. The Description field is optional, but can be helpful for documentation purposes.

The Check Information Section

Configuring the Matching Rules

7. The "Matching Rules" section is where you'll tell CheckCentral which emails should be processed by this Check. By default, the Check's email address will be populated with a custom email address based on the Check name. Since email notification addresses are set per-user in Comet, you'll want to click the edit icon (looks like a pencil) next to the custom email address, and change it to something more generic for that Comet user. In this example we'll change it to "demo+user01@mycheckcentral.cc." You'll see where this gets used later in this guide.

The Matching Rules Section

Setting the Default Status

8. In the "Status" section, you'll set what you want the default status to be when an email matches the check, but doesn't match any of the Success/Warning/Failure rules. Generally it's best to leave this set to Failure, then specify your Success and Warning criteria. This way it's only marked as successful or warning if it matches your given rules, anything else is marked as a failure so that you get notified and can investigate further.

The Status Section

Configuring the Success and Warning Rules

9. The "Success Rules" section is where you'll set the criteria that will mark the Activity as successful. Click the "Add Success Rule" link. A successful run of a Comet Protected Item will have the word "Success" in the email Subject, so we'll set the rule to "Subject contains Success"
10. The "Warning Rules" section is where you'll set the criteria that will mark the Activity as a warning. Click the "Add Warning Rule" link. The email notification for a Comet Protected Item will have the word "Warning" in the email Subject, so well set the rule to "Subject contains Warning"

The Success/Warning Rules Section

Configuring Notifications

11. In the Notifications section, you can choose how to you want to be notified about changes to the status of this Check. In this example, enabling the checkbox for "Email" will send an email when the Check status changes, to everyone on the CheckCentral Organization > Users page that has Email notifications enabled. If there are consecutive Success emails, a notification won't be sent every time, only when the status changes from Success to Warning/Failure, and back.
12. Click the "Save Check" button to finish setting up this Check.

The Notifications Section

Configuring Comet

13. Now that our Check is setup in CheckCentral, we'll need to configure Comet to send its emails to CheckCentral for this user (User01). In the Comet admin interface, go to Accounts > Users > User01, and add the email address for the CheckCentral check that you created in step 7, and make sure to click the "Save Changes" button.

Adding Email Address to Comet User

Testing it Out

14. Now we're ready to run the Protected Item to test it out. Go ahead and run your Comet Protected Item manually.

The Comet Backup UI
15. After the job is done running, if you refresh the Check page, you'll see the new Activity listed in the "Recent Activity" section. You can also see a new Activity dot for it on the main Dashboard for your organization.

The Recent Activity Section

The Main Dashboard
16. Clicking the Activity's dot on the Check page or the Dashboard will show the email contents in a modal dialog.

The Activity Details
17. As always, if you run into any trouble configuring your Checks, please feel free to contact us and we'll be glad to help out.

It's sale time again! Celebrate Black Friday and Cyber Monday with some amazing deals on all of our desktop software! We're offering all of our desktop products at a sale price of up to 50% off, until November 27th!

If you're not familiar with all of our apps, feel free to check them out on our More Apps page.

DisplayFusion

VoiceBot

FileSeek

ClipboardFusion

iTunesFusion

LogFusion

TrayStatus

We're very excited to announce that DisplayFusion 9.4 Beta 4 is now available for download! This beta fixes a couple of wallpaper provider API issues, and adjusts the titlebar button positions for some apps that were conflicting.

Important Notes!

• The first time you open the Settings > Screen Saver tab, it might be very slow to open due to Windows Defender locking the .scr files for a long time during the initial scan
• Known Issue: Desktop Wallpaper doesn't recognize Monitor Splits (will be fixed for Beta 5)

DisplayFusion 9.4 Beta 4 Highlights

• Window Snapping is now disabled for Chrome because of Chrome's hook blocks
• Windows minimized to tray will no longer have an extra taskbar button
• SmugMug and Vladstudio wallpaper provider fixes
• Wallpaper fixes when Oculus Rift Software is running

Updating DisplayFusion

We encourage everyone to update to this new version today to take advantage of these improvements. If you've already purchased DisplayFusion, it's a lifetime license, so you can upgrade to this version at no cost! If you would like to see a complete list of all the changes, please visit the DisplayFusion Beta Change Log.

Universal app windows don't run in separate processes the way that regular desktop apps do. They have a background process for the app, and the windows themselves run in a container process, ApplicationFrameHost.exe. Because of this, setting up Trigger rules for Universal apps (aka Windows Store apps or Metro apps) is a slightly different process from regular desktop apps. In this guide we'll use the Calendar app as an example.

1. Open the Calendar app, and position it where you want it to be moved to by the Trigger rule.
2. On the DisplayFusion Settings > Triggers tab, click "Add."
3. In the "Edit Trigger" window, enable the "Process Filename" checkbox, cancel the "Select Application" window, then put *ApplicationFrameHost.exe into the Process Filename field.
4. In the "Window Text" field, enter the Universal app name, in this case, "Calendar".
5. Below the Actions pane, click "Add > Move Window to Specific Size and Location," drag the blue target icon and drop it on the Calendar window, then click OK.
   

   Trigger Rule for Calendar App
6. Click OK again to save the rule, then OK to apply the main Settings window.
7. Close and re-open the Calendar app to test out the new Trigger rule.

As always, if you run into any trouble, please feel free to contact us and we'll be glad to help out!

We're pleased to announce a few new CloudShow apps to give you greater flexibility in what you can show on your displays! This week we've added Instagram, Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, and PDF apps to the list.

Instagram

The Instagram app allows you to login with your account and display a slidedshow of images that are posted to your account. Note that the Instagram API is restrictive and doesn't allow you to pull images from other user's feeds.

Instagram App

Word, PowerPoint, and PDF

On the Content Management page, you can now upload Word, PowerPoint, and PDF documents. They'll automatically get converted into a format that works with CloudShow, and you'll receive an email notifying you when the conversion is done. When the conversion is complete, you can add the newly uploaded files to the appropriate app for that file type. You can also use Word pages, PowerPoint slides, and PDF pages in the Image Slideshow app.

Content Management Page

MS Word App

MS PowerPoint App

PDF App

Congratulations to our top contributing members for October 2018! They have been hard at work submitting, rating, and discussing images on WallpaperFusion, and have racked up some impressive reputation scores along the way!

Contributors 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

JigsawMania 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Check out the current top members or look at previous months on our Top Members page!

We've just rolled out a CloudShow update with a couple of exciting new changes! We've added a new "Device Map" page, and made some substantial improvements to the Image Slideshow app and Content management pages.

Device Maps

First off, we've added a "Device Map" page so that you can quickly see the location and status of any device in your organization. To view the Device Map, click the "View Device Map" link at the top of your Dashboard, and you'll be presented with a map that looks something like this:

Green balloons represent online devices, red balloons represent offline devices, and clicking on a balloon will give you more details about the device. If there are multiple devices in the same area, they'll be combined into one balloon and you'll see the details for all of them when clicking the balloon. A balloon that's half green, half red indicates there are multiple devices, with at least one online and one offline.

Image Slideshow Improvements

We've also made some great improvements to the Image Slideshow app, and the Content management page. In the Image Slideshow Settings dialog, we've improved the image selector. It now shows image previews, and you can select multiple images quickly by holding CTRL when selecting the images, or by clicking the "Select All" link at the top.

Content Management Improvements

Over on the Content page, you can now easily delete multiple images by using the checkboxes to select them all before clicking the delete button. You can also click the Edit (pencil) icon next to an image to see more details about the image, and replace the image with a newer version if needed.

We're happy to announce updates to both the Activities and Stats pages! The searching and filtering on these pages has been improved and expanded, with new and more detailed options available.

The Activities page now provides the ability to filter activities by group, date range, and even the source of the activity: email messages, overdue activities, user-set statuses, or updates from the CheckCentral API.

Updated Activities page filtering

The Stats page has also been updated to allow filtering by the activity source, as well as by only a specific check. As always, any search on the Stats page can be saved as a PDF or CSV format report.

Updated Stats page filtering

We hope these updates will make it even easier and more convenient to find and report on only the information that is important to you!

VoiceBot 3.4 is now available for download! This release fixes a couple of small issues, and adds a "Run Macro" button in the Settings window for easier testing of Macros.

VoiceBot 3.4 Highlights

• HotKeys assigned to Macros now unbind if the target application is not in focus.
• Added a "Run Macro" button to the Profile Edit, Macro Edit, and Global Macros windows to allow for easier testing of Macros.
• Fixed an issue where deleted default Global Macros returned on the next restart.

Updating VoiceBot

We encourage everyone to update to the new version today to take advantage of these improvements. If you've already purchased VoiceBot, it's a lifetime license, so you can upgrade to this version at no cost! If you would like to see a complete list of all the changes, please view the VoiceBot Change Log. We'd also like to thank everyone who helped test and translate VoiceBot!

VoiceBot Screenshots

VoiceBot Main Window

We're happy to announce that iTunesFusion 3.3 is now available for download! This release fixes a couple of small issues with iTunes compatibility.

iTunesFusion 3.3 Changes

• Fixed an issue where you would sometimes not be able to edit your sync profiles
• iTunes is now detected correctly when installed through the Windows Store (as a Universal app)
• General fixes and improvements

Updating iTunesFusion

We encourage everyone to update to the new version today to take advantage of these improvements. If you would like to see a complete list of all the changes, please view the iTunesFusion Change Log. We would also like to thank all of the translators who have helped translate ClipboardFusion to their native languages.

iTunesFusion Screenshots

iTunesFusion Sync Window