Dear Sir/Madam,

We are happy to announce that Cyclos 4.5 can now be downloaded from our license server. A new version of the mobile app (1.3.1) is also available at the app stores (Android and Iphone). Cyclos 4.5 and the new mobile version have various new features and many improvements:

Voucher / gift cards
Vouchers can be used for specific payment purposes such as gift vouchers, discount coupons or to top up prepaid balances . A voucher is basically a long number presented as plain text or as a QR or barcode that can be redeemed (cashed) at a shop or by the user himself.
The shop can type in the number, but would usually scan the QR code. Vouchers can have many spending restrictions such as weekday, max amount, max amount per user etc. For example, a restaurant can promote vouchers for users that can only redeem on Monday, because on Monday the restaurant often has empty seats.
Vouchers can be generated in Cyclos by an admin and printed directly (single voucher or bulk print), or exported to a CSV file and sent to a printing company or card maker. There is also an option in Cyclos that allows users to buy and print vouchers directly. The next Cyclos app (version 1.4) will have a Voucher wallet for consumers, as well as redeeming voucher option for merchants. The redeem voucher option will include an option to scan a QR or bar code.

Business directory / Geolocation
In addition to the existing user search there is now also a business directory search. This search will show specific groups of users as markers on a map. Clicking on a marker will bring you to the user profile, from which you can perform a payment to the business. At the business directory page you can also refine the search by selecting a business category, for example ‘restaurant’. Subsequently, additional search filters can be configured in the advanced search. This business directory is available at the Web channel as well as the mobile app. With the mobile app the default location or the GPS location of the mobile phone is used, which makes it easy to search for specific businesses nearby.

History logs
Besides the existing (file based) logging we added a history log that is written to the database and that can be access by administrators and brokers. The profile log show the modification of any profile field and addresses, phones, custom fields and records. Each log entry includes the timestamp, the user that made the change, the IP address, and the new and old values of the field that has been changed. It also shows the Channel through which the change was made. The history log can be searched by changes of specific fields and by period.

External storage option for files
By default all files in Cyclos (pictures, documents, other file uploads) are stored directly in the database. In a typical database the files constitutes a large part of the database (in size). For small and medium projects this not an issue, but for larger projects with much data (tens of Gigabytes) it will be beneficial to store the files/documents outside the database. Cyclos now has an option to define external storage for files. This can be a file server or an Amazon S3 service.

Channel improvements
All access to Cyclos goes via Channels. Cyclos has built-in channels such as Main web, SMS, Web services and Point of Sale. The Mobile app, which was using the Web services channel, now has its own Channel. This Channel can be used to facilitate specific business rules and permissions for the Mobile app. The Cyclos 4.5 version also allows creating custom Channels, and binding them to products and configurations. A product can now be configured to be assigned to a specific Channel. Also the access clients can now connect as a user identification method at the web service channel.

Improved accessibility / visibility permissions
The accessibility and visibility settings that were previously located in the group, product and configuration are now all centralized in the product section ‘Accessibility & Visibility’. Various new accessibility and visibility options have been added. And much more advanced configurations are now possible.

Custom Web services
In the case third party software needs to access the Cyclos API with a fixed format, a custom web service can be created for that purpose. For example, it would be much easier to connect with a USSD gateway, that has usually predefined message formats.

Support for docker
Cyclos can now be deployed as docker container (see www.docker.com). This is very convenient for testing purposes, as you can download Cyclos from the docker repository and install and run Cyclos with a few simple commands (see https://hub.docker.com/r/cyclos/cyclos/). For live projects docker also offers a solid hosting framework.

Cyclos translation service
The translation of Cyclos is now managed with the Crowdin translation platform. This platform facilitates easy translation of Cyclos and manageable. If your language is not supported yet, feel free to sign up at http://translate.cyclos.org. We will be happy to enter new languages into Cyclos.

Cyclos hosting
The SocialTrade IT team now offers hosting for customer with a Cyclos 4 PRO license. Information about the hosting can be found at:
http://www.cyclos.org/hosting/

Other improvements and minor new features are:
- More address field options
- Search on mobile phone number
- Amount search option in account history
- Better notifications handling
- Improved custom operations module
- Support SSL protocol for SMTP
- Improve password type validation
- Improve record permissions
- Allow mobile phones to not be unique

For more information about Cyclos and the Social Trade Organisation, please visit:
www.cyclos.org
www.socialtrade.org