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Beacon Tower v4.3.0 - Administrator Features

Beacon Tower Team
Beacon Tower Team
Beacon Tower Developer Team

Version: 0.8.470 → 0.9.14

Significant enhancements to administrative capabilities, focusing on multi-organization management, firmware deployment workflows, and security improvements. Streamlined complex administrative tasks with more granular control over organizational structures and IoT device management.

Beacon Tower v4.3.0 Release Notes

This release note covers Administrator Features. View other v4.3.0 components:

Overview​

This release introduces significant enhancements to administrative capabilities, focusing on multi-organization management, firmware deployment workflows, and security improvements. These updates streamline complex administrative tasks while providing more granular control over organizational structures and IoT device management.

🎯 Key Features​

🏢 Multi-Organization Management Enhancement​

Enhanced Context Switching and Filtering

Administrators managing multiple organizations now benefit from comprehensive organization-level filtering across the entire admin interface:

  • Persistent Organization Context: Organization selection is maintained across admin pages using cookie-based storage, eliminating repetitive selection when navigating between different administrative sections
  • Context-Aware Asset Filtering: All asset lists and views automatically filter by the selected organization, providing focused visibility into specific organizational resources
  • Integrated Organization Selector: Seamless organization switching integrated directly into the navigation interface, making multi-tenant management more intuitive
  • Improved Performance: Optimized organization selection queries and caching mechanisms reduce load times when switching between organizational contexts
Impact

Administrators can now efficiently manage multi-tenant environments with significantly reduced context-switching overhead and clearer resource isolation.

🔧 Firmware Management Complete Overhaul​

Streamlined Deployment Workflows

The firmware management system has been completely redesigned to provide a robust, guided experience for firmware deployment:

  • Guided Release Creation Wizard: Step-by-step workflow for creating firmware releases with validation at each stage, including file upload, property configuration, and comprehensive review before deployment
  • Enhanced File Handling: Improved file upload system with real-time validation, error handling, and progress tracking
  • Property Management Interface: New SimpleValue component hierarchy for managing firmware properties with intuitive editing controls
  • Type-Safe Operations: Complete TypeScript migration ensuring type safety throughout the firmware workflow, reducing runtime errors and improving developer experience
  • Full Internationalization: All firmware interfaces now support multiple languages with comprehensive i18n coverage
Impact

Firmware deployment workflows are now more reliable, user-friendly, and maintainable, with significantly reduced risk of configuration errors during critical deployment operations.

🏗️ Organization Template Management​

Template-Based Organization Provisioning

New organizational template system enables rapid, consistent deployment of organizational structures:

  • Template Creation and Editing: Define reusable organizational templates including resource allocations, user roles, and hierarchical structures
  • Privilege Management: Granular control over template-level privileges and access rights
  • Resource and User Filtering: Advanced filtering capabilities within template configuration modals for efficient resource assignment
  • Publishing Workflow: Controlled template publishing process ensuring templates are validated before being made available for organization creation
  • Asset and Member Relations: Support for defining complex asset hierarchies and organizational membership structures within templates
Impact

Significantly accelerates multi-organization deployment scenarios and ensures consistency across organizational structures, reducing setup time and configuration errors.

🤝 Asset Binding & Relationship Management​

Improved Asset Hierarchy Visualization

Enhanced asset-to-asset binding capabilities provide clearer visibility into complex asset relationships:

  • Comprehensive Binding Transformation: Modernized asset binding interface with improved data handling and relationship visualization
  • Enhanced TypeScript Support: Complete AdminBindingPage conversion to TypeScript for better type safety and maintainability
  • Improved Toolbar Controls: Enhanced button states with loading indicators and disabled states for better user feedback during operations
  • Alphabetical Organization: Relations and action buttons are now sorted alphabetically for improved discoverability and navigation
  • Advanced Relation Filtering: More intuitive filtering options for managing complex asset hierarchies
Impact

Administrators can more easily understand, navigate, and manage complex asset relationships, particularly in large-scale deployments with deeply nested hierarchies.

🖥️ IoT Device Simulation System​

Developer Testing Capabilities

New simulation management features for development and testing scenarios:

  • Simulation Admin Section: Dedicated interface for creating and managing simulated IoT devices
  • Simulation Workflows: Complete creation and editing workflows for defining simulated device behavior
  • Developer Access Controls: Restricted access ensuring simulation features are only available to authorized developers
  • Status Integration: Real-time simulation status monitoring and control
Impact

Provides development and QA teams with powerful tools for testing IoT scenarios without requiring physical device deployments.

🔒 Security Improvements​

🔐 Authentication & Provider Security Hardening​

Critical Security Enhancements

These changes address critical security vulnerabilities. Immediate review recommended.

Critical Security Enhancements

  • OAuth 2.0 RFC 6749 Compliance: Updated authentication flow to use accessToken instead of idToken, resolving a critical security vulnerability and ensuring proper OAuth 2.0 standard compliance
  • Certificate-Based Authentication: Added support for certificate-based authentication for IoT Hub provider clients, providing enhanced security options for device connectivity
  • Authentication Type Configuration: Provider client provisioning now includes explicit authentication type selection during setup
  • Architecture Simplification: Streamlined authentication architecture reducing complexity and potential security edge cases
Impact

Addresses critical security vulnerability affecting all authenticated operations while providing enhanced security options for IoT device connectivity.

⚡ Performance Improvements​

Optimization Initiatives​

  • Organization Selection Performance: Optimized queries and caching for organization context switching, reducing response times by up to 50% in multi-organization scenarios
  • Asset Filtering Efficiency: Improved database queries and indexing for organization-filtered asset lists, particularly beneficial for organizations with large asset inventories
  • Web Worker Integration: Offloaded computationally intensive operations to Web Workers, preventing UI blocking during data processing operations
  • Memory Management: Addressed memory leaks in organization selection components and improved component cleanup procedures
  • Rendering Optimizations: Reduced unnecessary re-renders in complex administrative interfaces through better React optimization patterns

⚠️ Breaking Changes​

Required Actions

Please review these breaking changes carefully and take necessary actions.

1. Authentication Token Handling​

  • Systems integrating with Beacon Tower APIs must now expect and handle accessToken instead of idToken
  • Update any custom authentication handlers to work with the new token format
  • No end-user action required; API integration teams should review authentication code

2. Provider Client Configuration​

  • Existing provider clients will continue to function, but new provider client configurations now require explicit authentication type selection
  • Review and update provider client provisioning workflows if automated

3. Organization Context​

  • Organization filtering is now persistent across sessions via cookies
  • Users may notice different default organization selection behavior on first login after upgrade
  • Clear cookies if unexpected organization context issues arise

🐛 Known Issues​

Limitations and Workarounds​

1. Organization Template Migration

Issue: Large organizational templates (>1000 resources) may experience slower publishing times

Workaround: Recommended to break very large templates into smaller, more focused templates

2. Firmware Upload Size

Issue: Firmware files larger than 500MB may time out during upload

Workaround: For very large firmware images, consider direct backend API usage or contact support

3. DTDL Model Validation

Issue: Some complex DTDL v4 nested component structures may show validation warnings even when valid

Workaround: These warnings can typically be safely ignored if the model deploys successfully

📚 Support and Documentation​

For questions or issues related to these changes:

  • Review updated admin documentation in the in-app help system
  • Contact technical support for upgrade assistance
  • Report issues through your standard support channels