May 2008 Release Notes. Version 2 R3

Enhancements

ID

Summary

Description

9876

Automatic generation of Web Services code and new WS methods

In order to make it easier to integrate EnterpriseWizard through web services, sample WS code to select, create, update and delete records may be auto-generated on a per-table basis from within the Setup/Table wizard.  

In addition, the WS documentation has been expanded and improved with more examples and two WS convenience methods have been added:

1. EWSelectAndRead
equivalent to login, select,
read, logout

2
. EWCreateAndRead
equivalent to login, create, read, logout

9875

Support for Elapsed Time / SLA Reports

An Elapsed Time report type has been added that reports how much time is spent on various business processes, such as the time spent closing tickets, or whether processes are within SLA requirements. These reports support groupings such as per-user or per-team.

9870

Inbound email parsing to set/update individual fields in a record

Inbound emails in plain text, HTML or XML format may now be parsed to set/update individual fields within the record.

9864

Dynamic hotlinks, templates and variables are now supported for manually generated emails

In earlier releases, dynamic substitution was only supported for emails generated by rules; it is now supported for manually generated emails also.

9852

Multiple dynamic hotlinks may be embedded in an email

Previously emails could only contain one dynamically generated hotlink. This limitation has been removed to allow an unlimited number of dynamic hotlinks.

9251

Field variables in emails are replaced by $formula($field_variable)

To ensure proper processing of field variables in email templates when they are followed by punctuation marks, the system now embeds them in parentheses with the variable "$formula" preceding them. Upgrading to this release auto-converts existing field variables in email templates to this format. The format should also be used when typing field variables manually.

6883

New Inbox search: All My Assigned Records

In the Inbox drop-down there is an item at the top called "All My Assigned Records".

The screen will present the search results for all of the tables for which the My Assigned search is both accessible and active (the same tables that currently appear to the user on the inbox drop-down).

The results are shown in separate tables one after the other (in tab layout order). The tables are displayed using the user's default view for each table. Records are editable or viewable as permissions dictate from this screen.

Additionally, a new option has been added to the drop-down on the Home/Preferences screen to take the user to this search upon login. The option is listed as "Inbox/All My Assigned Records".

6314

Performance Improvements for Large KBs

System performance has been improved, with the change most apparent on tables with over 100,000 records. EnterpriseWizard now scales to very large KB's whose size is limited only by the backend database. It has been tested on tables with over 10,000,000 records.

6158

Enhanced security checks for malicious scripting in HTML fields

When creating and editing HTML fields, you will see a new Apply Security Checks checkbox.

While this option is on (it is checked by default), the system will guard against malicious code by removing all scripts and all tags which are potentially exploitable, such as SCRIPT, OBJECT, APPLET etc.

9873

Round robin assignment of chat requests

Inbound chat requests may now be automatically distributed among team members in a round-robin fashion to evenly distribute the workload.

8841

Rules for specific table now available in new tab under Setup/Tables in addition to Setup/Rules

There are now 2 ways to reach Rules for a given table: 1) The new way allows you to view rules for a particular table when editing it from the Setup/Tables interface. 2) The Setup/Rules tab will still include all rules from all tables.

7992

Background Processes can be turned off for all KBs in the Admin Console

A new tab under Setup in the Admin Console interface, called Background Processes, gives admins the ability to stop and start all background processes for all KBs on the server.

When selected, it shows the following
:

Click these buttons to start or stop background rules for all
KB's.
[Start] [Stop]

Current status: [Started | Stopped]

7759

New date conversions in functions

Functions are now available to:
1. Convert date to long
2. Convert date to string using user defined format

Detailed Usage Information:

"
to_number, to_number(parameter)", where parameter is an object of any type. Converts the function parameter to a number.

Example:
to_number("123") returns 123, to_number(now()) returns current time in milliseconds.

dateformat, dateformat(pattern, date) returns a string with a date formatted according a pattern. See patterns description at http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/text/SimpleDateFormat.html,

Example:
dateformat("h:mm a", date) returns something like 12:08 PM

7368

New option to show New Record wizard when converting

There is a new option in rules/actions/conversion action/options:

()Interactively, showing user the new record page.

If this option is set, a new record page is shown instead of the data conversion dialog. Fields in this page are filled by source data.

7088

Filter rules by table

There is a new mouse over drop-down in the setup/rules tab that shows options like:

All Tables
Table 1
Table 2
Table 3
Table 4
Listed in table tree order (alphabetical)

The effect of choosing a particular table is to filter the rules displayed to only those for that table. The table display of rules is not changed in any other way, it is simply filtered.

6702

View latest entry for Append Only fields

When looking at an Append Only field in a View, the latest addition will be shown instead of the complete field contents. This will allow viewers to see the most recent update at a glance.

5840

Can suppress encrypted ID information in outbound emails

You can now eliminate the encrypted part of the subject line in all outbound email. The email dialog includes a new option:
[x] Include encrypted ID information in subject line to enable replies to update correct record

If the user
unchecks this checkbox, then the whole encrypted string is eliminated. The header of the email still includes the relevant information so that an email reply will still work if the header is left intact.

5632

Improved Filtering, Searching, and Layout

String searches can not be selected with a single checkbox to make them easier to use. Simple searches such as Assigned To = Support Team can now be executed within the table view, without invoking the Saved Search screen.

You can now combine a search on a given table with a saved search on a related table.

Example: You can set up a saved search on the People table for Active =Yes and save it as <Active People> search. Then in the company table, you would be able to filter by
Company Status =
Active
[
and|or]
Related records from table [People] [
match|don't match] saved search <Active People>.

5436

Aggregate rule improvement

The logic behind the 3rd rule type that runs based on an aggregate condition has been changed to allow internal grouping. It's now possible to use this option to find any time a single customer has submitted more than 10 records within the last week without having to write a search and rule for each distinct customer.

2544

Options have been added to secure the Session URL to prevent re-use.

We have added support to protect a session with a short-life cookie. Using the "Require matching session and passed cookie" global variable in your KB will prevent anyone from re-using your session. This security measure guards against someone in your office looking at the browser window on your PC browser and copying down the session URL for re-use.

9871

More descriptive license management screen.

Now the license manager can see exactly how many licenses are active and how many were terminated.

9426

New utility added to reduce export file size

A strip-attached files option has been added for removing attached files when exporting a KB. This greatly reduces the export file size for test purposes.

9118

Record ownership criteria is now shown in group permission wizard

Previously, while setting group permissions, admins could not see what field was used to define record ownership. We have added the following line to the record permission tab of the group wizard right under the line that currently reads:
The permissions you set using this dialog will apply to the table: [Employee]
A Record is owned by the person whose own [user field label] field matches the [table field label] field

For instance, this might now read:
A Record is owned by the person whose own Login field matches the Submitter Login field.

8631

Table deletion time reduced

Complex tables could take so long to delete that the system timed out before the deletion was finished. The time required to delete a table has been reduced by a factor of 5 to improve efficiency and eliminate this potential problem

7522

Online users can be warned of impending update.

New command line option added to ewupdate program:

-w,--warn Displays a warning message to customers about an
impending update. Argument syntax is MMM or MMM:NNN, where MMM is the
number of minutes before update and NNN is the estimated update duration
in minutes

6444

Improvements to LDAP Settings Wizard

New informational and warning text has been added to the LDAP Settings Wizard. The Wizard also provides some new recommendations for certain fields, such as: LDAP Object Class is usually set to 'user'.


There is also a new pop-up dialog for the login field that triggers on an invalid value, displaying:

"Warning: login is usually set to '
sAMAccountName' for ADs and 'cn' for LDAP, but you have set it to 'XXXX'. Are you sure?"

6093

Oracle as an external data source

It is now possible to use an Oracle database as the source of external linked fields

9872

Detailed error messages in installer

Some new features have been added to the EW installer, so after JBoss start / stop or a KB import error, the installer may produce more detailed messages like 'import error, KB *** failed to load, patcher error, see *** log file for details'

8566

YYYYMMDD date format now accepted for Date fields

when importing

It is now possible to import dates from a text file with the format YYYYMMDD into Date fields.

6394

Performance Testing now available in Admin Console

A new tab labeled Performance has been added to the admin console. When selected, this menu item will show a button: "Run Performance Test", with Hint text: "Click this button to run a performance test. This test will take about 15 minutes and will slow the server to a crawl while it is running."

The Performance Test will stop background services on the server and upload a specially designed performance testing KB. When the testing is complete, the server will remove the performance KB and resume services.

The test will output a performance summary with a link to a full report.

5594

Enhanced tuning of http / https

It is possible now to do more tuning of the EW embedded tomcat web server after installation: change port numbers, open or close http port worldwide, enable or disable https port, use customer's or fake auto-generated keystore file.

More detailed all these changes are described in EnterpriseWizard_Installation.doc document (EW installation manual).

7469

Communications tables store full email headers

Communications tables now store the full SMTP email headers in the comm_header field for inbound and outbound messages to aid in auditing and analysis

6199

Curser changed over clickable buttons - reduces chance of accidental deletion.

For URL data types, the cursor will change when you mouse over the delete and edit buttons, reducing the chance of accidental deletion.

6526

Related table calculations can be used in formulas

The formula wizard now allows you to use related table calculations in other calculation fields.

6509

Chat supported in Safari for end-user interface

Chat functionality in the end-user interface is now compatible with the Safari browser.

6457

Email addresses are no longer case sensitive

Email addresses are no longer case-sensitive and will not affect any comparisons EnterpriseWizard uses for validation. This had caused issues with inbound emails being rejected when the sender was not recognized because the user record's email had a different case from the inbound email itself.

5929

New scheduling options added to charts/reports wizard

New options are available to ensure that reports saved to disk can be scheduled more frequently than daily. Those new options are:

( ) Every __ minutes during working hours of the <list of teams> Team
( ) Hourly during working hours of the <list of teams> Team

The result is to run the report at that frequency, during the working hours of the selected team.

5686

Conversion enhancements

The conversion wizard now allows you to create more than one conversion action for any table. When running conversion through a rule, the administrator must choose which conversion records to run. The wizard also offers an easy way to open the newly-created record for editing.

5410

Related Table data sorted by search options

Prior to this release, Related Table data was shown in an order dictated by the table. Now, if the data in a Related Table is subject to search criteria, the data will be displayed in the order dictated by the search.

7051

Related Table Calculation field updates tracked in History

Changes to calculation fields in related tables used to be silent and not tracked in history. With this new version, changes to these fields are tracked in history and can trigger rules if they meet search criteria and the rule acts upon API changes.

6755

Improved Date Format for Excel exports

When Date fields are exported to Excel, the columns will no longer include any reference to time.

6562

New field visibility option for calculations on related data

You can now make the visibility of the calculations on related data dependent on the choice value in a specified choice field.

6461

Apostrophe supported in email addresses

The system now sees email addresses that include an apostrophe as valid.

6082

Ability to append new team value to existing teams added.

You can now mass edit users and assign them to a new Team and choose to overwrite their existing teams, or append the new value to their existing teams.

5916

New mass edit options available to administrators

If the user is a member of the admin group, new Mass Edit options allow the user to optionally run rules and update defaults:

[x] Run rules. Deselect this option to prevent rules from being triggered by the change

[x] Update defaults. Deselect to prevent default field values such as date-modified from being updated

4947

Global variables can be set in the Admin console.

Global variables can be set in the Admin console itself so as to be available to all the KBs. However, if a global variable already exists in the KB then it takes precedence over the variables set in the admin console. If the referenced variable is unavailable in a particular KB the Admin console variables take over.
Note: The global variables created through the admin console are not visible in the
KBs.

6380

CAS integration implemented

We support CAS authentication with /cas-login alias for our /login.jsp. Hotlinks that reference this alias should not include user and password parameters, otherwise they are normal hotlinks. Redirect to CAS is made based on the value of casServerLoginUrl global variable. It is also important to have hotlinkServerRoot setup correctly as that is what we send to CAS and that's where CAS will redirect after authentication.

We also support sending CAS-
ified hotlinks if the global variable hotlinkType exists and is set to "CAS". Same rule about not including user and password applies.

When user logs into EW via CAS the value of the password field in EW contact record is completely ignored.

6295

System fully supports HTML-formatted field labels in lookup fields

You can now use HTML to specify the format of lookup fields' labels for data types like short text.

5930

Macro for alternate end-user interface allows running saved reports

Support has been added for the alternate (template-based) end-user interface that would allow end users to run reports that had been scheduled and saved to disk.

5624

Hyperlink logins can now set user language

By adding "locale=" to the hyperlink address, language can be set on login.
Available values for locale are: de, en,
es, fr, ru, zh, pt_BR
These set the language to German, English, Spanish, French, Russian, Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese respectively.

4698

JavaScript replaces Java applet dialogs

JavaScript dialog boxes tend to be faster than java applet dialogs and so this improves user experience.

610

Calendar events can now be shown in other table's records as related table

Previously when using the calendar icon in a table to create a calendar event, the event could not be viewed in the record from which it was created. A link was set up in one direction, so that in the calendar record view you could see the linked item, but not in the other direction.

This enhancement makes calendar entries available to the related table data type so you can now create a related table in any other table that will show all calendar entries related to a particular record within that record.

412

Message broadcast facility added to EUI.

A message area has been added to the End User Interface above the top tabs, enabling messages to be sent to End Users/Customers as well to staff groups via the EUI.

6275

Protection against password guessing

EnterpriseWizard will now temporarily lock accounts for 5 minutes after login attempts fail 5 times in a row.

5353

Unix installers are working in console mode by default

Before this fix Unix installers should be run with -c option to work in console (not GUI) mode. Now this is default behavior. For running in GUI mode -g option should be given in command line.

7272

Standard Deviation function available for Calculations on Multiple Linked Records

Standard Deviation has been added to the calculation on multiple linked records for new fields in a table.

9421

Export Field type: Link to Single Value from Another Table w/ Multiple Values

It is now possible to export a single linked field with multiple values. When exported, these fields will show all linked values.

8925

Improved localization support for modifying choice list values

Renaming choice list values did not work consistently when the GUI was accessed in non-English languages. This problem has been fixed.

7834

Problem with changes to email templates not being visible or properly saved in table view

There was a bug that caused edits to email templates not to appear properly in the table view and, sometimes, not to be saved. The bug has been fixed.

7339

New functionality added to Reports/Charts for Calc on Related Data fields.

Calculation on Related Data fields can now be included, summed, etc. in Reports/Charts. Previously these fields were not listed in the Report wizard.

6440

Create permissions now recognized by related table

A group that was allowed to view records but not create in a table was still able to create new records through a related table. Related tables permissions are now fixed.

9658

Conversion can now map ID field to a field in the converted record

Previously, when converting a record into a record in another table, it was difficult to link back to the source record, because it was not possible to map the ID field of the source record to the new record. Now, the ID field can be mapped to a linked ID field in the target table to establish a link back to the source record.

For instance, suppose you are converting a ticket into a change request. In the Change Request table you can have a set of linked fields from the ticket table that include the Ticket ID. Now you can map the
Ticket:ID field to the Change Request:Ticket ID field when converting, so the Change request will have the link back to the source ticket.

8363

Configurable Record Lock Expiration Time

A new variable named Lock Expiration Time has been added to the list of Global Variables under Setup/System. Edit locks occur when a user currently has a record open or did not click Finish when done. The new variable allows you to set the length of time before the record automatically unlocks, in minutes.

8080

Calculation on related table fields caused an error when running against MS SQL

Calculation on related table fields worked correctly using MySQL as the backend database, but not against MS SQL due to a bug in the MS SQL JDBC driver. The system now ships with an updated driver to prevent this problem

7728

Improved result handling for FAQ "New" searches

The system will now display an icon next to results that meet criteria specified in FAQ Setup saved search. This will provide a visual aid when identifying important and new FAQs.

7105

Improved LDAP Synchronization performance

The EW LDAP synchronization has been refactored to improve performance and reduce time taken to complete sync.

6693

Delete attachments from multiple records at once

You can now use Mass Edit to delete attachments from multiple records.

6731

Select and link multiple records in a Related Table

When trying to add existing records into a related table, you are now able to select multiple records and link them.

6667

Improved Report/Chart wizard

The Chart Wizard interface has been further streamlined

When creating a report; the Y-Axis fields were auto-populated with a value that prevented that value from being selected on the X-Axis. The values are no longer mutually exclusive, allowing a user to set the desired variable for one axis without having to change the other first.

9422

Drag and Drop functionality added to Export field list

When selecting which fields to export from a table, you can now drag and drop each field into any order desired. The order defaults to Alphabetical with ID at the top.

4932

64bit MySQL is bundled into 64bit windows installer (instead of 32bit one)

MySQL can now use more than 1000mb for innodb caches for optimum performance.

8087

Date fields exclude invalid dates

Date fields now allow only years within the range 1753-9999 to prevent potential data integrity problems with backend database that do not support dates outside this range.

6973

Look and feel: applied LOGO limits: 1Mb or greater than 400x200px

To prevent logos from being too large, file size limits are now set at 1MB and image dimensions are limited to 400x200px and lower.

5905

Sandbox for third party libs

The HTML parser has been updated with the addition of a time-aware restriction (5 minutes) for calls of third-party libraries of extracting text from attached files.

2059

MS Exchange inbound support

EnterpriseWizard now fully supports Microsoft Exchange server communication for Inbound Email, configured under the Setup/Email menu.

6125

Mass Edit of Linked Fields wizard improvement when Re-importing source

To alleviate confusion while Mass Editing linked fields, the option to add a new value has been removed when the "Reimport source record matching current value and recreate links" option has been selected. New values can still be added normally otherwise.

5628

Improved History rending in Internet Explorer

History field rendering has been improved to comply with IE 6 and IE 7 display paradigms.

7205

Empty values in numerical Calc on Related Data fields set to 0

When performing operations on Calc on Related Data fields, the system will now assign the value 0 to any empty fields.

Example: 65 added to an empty value will sum to 65.

6031

Communications table added to calendar

Email rules can now run on calendars, and calendar communications are stored in an associated Communications table.

9876

Automatic generation of Web Services code and new WS methods

In order to make it easier to integrate EnterpriseWizard through web services, sample WS code to select, create, update and delete records may be auto-generated on a per-table basis from within the Setup/Table wizard.  

In addition, the WS documentation has been expanded and improved with more examples and two WS convenience methods have been added:

1. EWSelectAndRead
equivalent to login, select,
read, logout

2
. EWCreateAndRead
equivalent to login, create, read, logout

 

 

Bug Fixes

ID

Summary

Description

7001

Cache, aka fake séance, issue fixed

Under rare circumstances, a user’s connection to the system could be marked as invalid, but still be present in cache, resulting in an error when accessing the system. This problem has been resolved

8925

Improved localization support for modifying choice list values

Renaming choice list values did not work consistently when the GUI was accessed in non-English languages. This problem has been fixed.

6986

Large KB export to local drive possible

It is now possible to export large KB backups to the local drive.

6355

Apostrophes correctly interpreted in variable values

HTML-formatted emails using variables whose value contained an apostrophe had been interpreted as "&#39;"; apostrophes are now displayed correctly.

7834

Problem with changes to email templates not being visible or properly saved in table view

There was a bug that caused edits to email templates not to appear properly in the table view and, sometimes, not to be saved. The bug has been fixed.

8505

Append Only fields were not properly formatted after being modified by an Update action

Modifications to Append Only fields by rules resulted in poorly formatted text, this bug has been fixed.