Our roadmap for eHive outlines the main features planned over the next 18 months. The features are listed in the planned order of implementation. If you have software suggestions, please post them in the Software Feedback and Suggestions section of the eHive forum. The forum provides a place to discuss issues and enhancements in greater detail.
The roadmap will be updated as enhancements are completed. Planned features may change based on further research or based on feedback from the eHive community.
Planned Enhancements
Saved Lists
Account holders will be able to gather together records from search results and create a list to save and re-use. This means that accounts holders can create their own lists for reporting, and will provide the basis for creating a list of collection highlights to show on their profile page. Saved lists can also be used for creating virtual exhibitions of objects that may be from many museums.
Advanced Searches
We are updating our Search page to provide advanced search options. Users will be able to build searches field by field, and utilise 'faceted' search options (to help refine search results).Standard Reports
Additional standard object based reports are planned to cover basic collections management functions. We'll also be releasing a guide to using Microsoft Word mail merges to build your own reports based on eHive's Excel export.
Object Detail Page Enhancements
The images upload section of the create screen will be separated into its own 'Add Image' link on the object detail page. The option to publish a record will be moved from the Create screen to a link on the object detail page.
Other general information about the object, such as communities it has been added to and the date it was last updated will be added.
Person Records
We will be adding support for recording more detailed information about people and organisations. This means you can record contact details and full biographical histories for donors, artists and lenders.
Security Levels
We will be building multiple logins into one account with different levels of access. Security levels will control access to areas such as account administration functions and pick list maintenance.
Create Screen Enhancements
The create screen will be reviewed to update the presentation of the pages and update the underlying technology we use to build the screens.
Past Updates
Updates to eHive are made approximately every 2-6 weeks and are described in the News - Notices section of the website.
23 Jan 2013 - 4.0.2
Change in latest version of Google Chrome web browser causes the Create/Edit screen to fail to load. Fixed by upgrading to latest version of Google Web Toolkit. Upgrade also includes first round of changes to support API access with URL parameter-based authentication. This provides an alternative to OAuth authentication and makes it possible to use the API from Javascript.
11 January 2013 - 4.0.1
Upgrade of underlying architecture for eHive, including migration of database to new servers, upgrade of database software and upgrade of operating system.
20 November 2012 - 4.0
2.0 beta release of eHive programming interfaces. These provide ways of accessing content from other websites or software.
2.0 beta release of WordPress plugins. These support developing branded websites which include object and account information from eHive.
New developers.ehive.com website to provide full technical information on using the programming interfaces and WordPress plugins.
6 Nov 2012 - 3.8
Object Type, Place Made and Maker are now clickable links (to show all object records with the same field value). Dublin Core metadata tags now embedded in object detail pages to help third party systems like search engines. OAI-PMH data harvesting extended to cover four additional public fields. Additional spam checking on comments. Metadata added to support inline citations of object pages when links posted to Twitter or Facebook.
11 Oct 2012 - 3.7
Better sorting by object number, enhancements to Excel import and Vernon Access import processes.
28 Sep 2012 - 3.6
Performance improvements, better validation in eHive import spreadsheet, upgrade payment gateway software.
14 September 2012 - 3.4.4-3.4.5
Changes to support the upcoming version 2.0 release of eHive's Application Programming Interface.
21 August 2012 - 3.4.3
Additional sort options added. Object search results can now be sorted by many additional fields, including some private object fields if the user is logged in.
14 July 2012 - 3.4.1-3.4.2
Minor bugs fixes. Word stemming in the SOLR indexes has been disabled to avoid users getting too many results.
12 May 2012 - 3.4
Support for Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Harvesting Metadata. This provides users the option to have their records and images automatically copied to aggregation sites like DigitalNZ, Trove and Culture Grid.
9 February 2012 - 3.3
Migration of Excel and XML reports into our new reporting tool. Background work to support better text indexing using SOLR.
16 January 2012 - 3.2.2-3.2.3
Minor bug fixes including error when multiple images are added to a record at the same time. Upgrades to software for Joomla and SOLR.
9 December 2011 - 3.2.1
Automated emails when accounts near their storage limit. Minor fixes for new reporting tool.
17 November 2011 - 3.2
Reports have been rebuilt in Jasper, a report design product, and a new downloads section has been added to eHive to allow reports to generate in the background.
29 September 2011 - 3.1-3.1.2
Database, caching and indexing changes to improve the performance of the website.
13 July 2011 - 3.0
Major upgrade which includes new location history fields, new public fields, valuation history reordering, metadata for search engines and support for Internet Explorer 9.0
20 April 2011 - 2.0.1
Detail reports extended to show all private fields, not just public fields. Performance improvements to home page. Automatic emails altered to include HTML formatting.
5 April 2011 - 2.0
New fields for object valuation history, faster create/edit screen and automatic notifications sent to account holders when comments are added to their public objects.
21 January 2011 - 1.9.3
Changes to Javascript on account and object detail pages to improve performance. 'Search Again' link added to search results page. Detail PDF report changed so that header section for an object (which includes the image) only shows on the first page for each object.
11 January 2011 - 1.9.2
Enhancement to allow for searching on words with diacritics (accented characters) with or without the diacritics. Bug fixes in label view PDF report and in saving public profile changes.
23 December 2010 - 1.9.1
Minor style changes to account public profile page to stop images overlaying text while the Javascript is loading in the background. Bug fix for occasional errors uploading images. Validation added to latitude and longitude fields on edit my profile - public profile page.
30 November 2010 - 1.9
Automatic addition of map locations for existing accounts with a public address. This enables the Google Maps changes in 1.8.9 for accounts with a physical address on their public profile page. Extensions also added to eHive API to support communities.
26 November 2010 - 1.8.9
Google maps support added allowing accounts to display a map with their physical location on their public profile page (museum directory page).
9 November 2010 - 1.8.8
Enhancement to support sorting of records in reports. Changes to beta version of eHive API.
3 November 2010 - 1.8.7
Sorting of complex object numbers. eHive now stores the original object number entered and a formatted version which is used for sorting. Draft records now sorted by date created. Bug fixes and enhancements to record indexing.
Server-side changes for upcoming eHive application programming interfaces and Wordpress plugins.
25 June 2010 - 1.8.1
A new pick list editor was added in the latest upgrade. You can edit term names and delete unused ones. Terms show the number of records they are used in, and the related records can be opened in a new tab from the link.
28 May 2010 - 1.8
Support added for rights management. A default copyright licence can be assigned to all records and overridden on any individual record. The copyright licences include All Rights Reserved (the default), Creative Commons licences, and No Rights Reserved (public domain). A new Notices area for notifying account holders of any important changes was added to the logged in home page.
18 April 2010 - 1.7
Track the acquisition of one or more objects in a single acquisition lot record. The acquisition record can later be linked to one or more object records that share the same acquisition information.
22 Mar 2010 - 1.6
Major upgrade to NZMuseums website and auto-suggestions as you type in pick list fields
11 Feb 2010 - 1.5
Image uploading section of cataloguing screens reorganised, plus the addition of a new image cropping tool
17 Dec 2009 - 1.4.2
A minor update was performed today, fixing some problems with bulk data imports and image derivative creation. We also added a social bookmarking button on key pages.
13 Nov 2009 - 1.4.1
NZMuseums search widget released
28 Oct 2009 - 1.4
New Explore page to view the most interesting objects
Behind the scenes changes for the upcoming NZMuseums widget
Bug fixes in deleting and saving records
15 Sep 2009 - 1.3
Export data to Excel and comma separated values formats
Search Friendly URLS - Convert the website address structure to a more human format (search friendly)
Improved layout and CSS - clearer more consistent layout, XHTML 1.0 compliance, simpler CSS
Community Administration Reports - Download list of approved members, Summary report (pending/approved/declined members, total objects)
Exhibition Labels (fixed format for printed labels)
Create screen - a new header section to make it easier to see the main details of an object, including the thumbnail image, on every tab.
29 April 2009 1.2
Closed beta stage completed. Now anyone can sign up for an account!
New Administrator Options for Communities - approve and decline pending members.
Link back to the Home page from your username in the top header and from the eHive logo.
My Latest Objects now includes objects that do not yet have an image.
NZMuseums - Integration with NZLive.com. Search on events information from www.nzmuseums.co.nz based on content in the NZLive.com website.
31 March 2009 1.1.1
New short aliases for common fields to save typing when searching.
Payment screens for account purchases and renewals.
12 March 2009 - 1.1
New object cataloguing screen tabs for acquisition, administration and conservation.
New fields in many of the existing create/edit screens, particularly for Natural Sciences. New icons for cataloguing screens, plus a tidier page layout.
Choose which is the main (primary) image for objects that have multiple images.
View Account Usage - this shows the usage of disk space in the account and a history of image and record counts.
30 January 2009 - 1.0.1
Minor bug fixes, new results sorting options, better compression of images
