November 2018 Release Notes. Agiloft Version 6 R10.3

Number of Items:
63
Category :
Enhancement
Number of Items:
46
ID Summary Resolution
2131 Jira Software integration for shared issue or bug management

Jira Software can now be integrated with an Agiloft knowledgebase, making it possible to pass issues from one system to the other. For example, if support personnel document issues in Agiloft and pass them on to developers working in Jira, the same issue can be synced back and forth between the two systems.




For detailed setup information, see Jira Integration.

2147 Support for TLS 1.0 and 1.1 is deprecated; support is now provided for TLS 1.2

The TLS 1.0 and 1.1 security protocols are no longer supported. Support is now provided for TLS 1.2. 


This may affect your system if you use older browsers or clients. The following browsers and clients do not support TLS 1.2: 


• Android 4.3 and earlier versions 

• Firefox version 5.0 and earlier versions 

• Internet Explorer 8-10 on Windows 7 and earlier versions 

• Internet Explorer 10 on Win Phone 8.0 

• Safari 6.0.4/OS X10.8.4 and earlier versions  


This may also affect your system if you have certain integrations with Agiloft, such as SOAP and REST web services, Exchange Web Services (EWS), or Single Sign-On (SSO) Authentication. 


If you use any of these browsers or clients or have any of the above integrations, you will need to update your browser or client to the latest version to ensure your integrations continue working properly. 


Only the following cipher suites are currently supported:


• ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 

• ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 

• ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305 

• ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305 

• ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384 

• ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384 

• ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256

• ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256


Their appropriate protocol version and standard naming can be referenced at https://www.openssl.org/docs/man1.0.2/apps/openssl-ciphers.html.

2095 Dashboards (formerly called staff home pages) were redesigned with a new interface, widgets and filters

The Dashboard interface at the home screen of the Power User Interface has been redesigned, with a responsive tile-based layout, new widget types, and filters that can filter the widget data in real-time. For more information, see Dashboards.


Staff Home Pages are now Dashboards


Previously, clicking on Home in the left pane of the power user interface brought up what was called a Staff Home Page. These pages have now been renamed to Dashboards.


Additionally, the subheading under the Home tab in the left pane that was previously called Dashboards has been renamed to Chart Collections. This is where you can set up collections of grouped charts for distribution.




Dashboard Layout


The Layout tab of the Dashboard wizard has been redesigned to use a tile interface, which snaps widgets together and resizes them automatically by dragging them on the screen.



Filters


In the Filters tab of the Dashboard wizard, you can add filters to the dashboard in the form of widgets . Whenever a value is selected in one of the filter boxes, it immediately refines the data displayed in all relevant widgets with a new search.


In the setup menus for widgets whose type supports filters (such as Tables and Numeric Results), you can select whether the widget should be acted on by filters.

Filter types include:

  • Time - These allow you to select time-related fields for all tables used in the widgets which have been added to the layout. For example, a Time filter of Date Created could operate on Approval: Date Created, Contract: Date Crated, and Incident: Date Created.
  • User - These operate on Person-related fields in the tables used in the widgets on the layout. The filter uses a lookup to the People table, where you can select an identifying field to filter the widget. You can then choose related user fields from one of the fields in the widgets that are currently on the layout. You can also select a table view to open when the lookup is clicked, and apply a saved search to the search.
  • Team - These use Team fields in the filter lookup. The Team lookup identifies all related team fields in the tables used by the widgets on the layout. For instance, Contract: Assigned Team.
  • Linked Source Field - These use linked fields from a source table used in one of the widgets on the dashboard layout to filter the related values in the widget fields.

For more information, see Dashboard Filters.

Numeric Result Widgets


The Numeric Result widget for Dashboards shows a single number calculated from a formula which can use table variables. Because this widget is small in size, it can be helpful to group several into one area of the dashboard for an overview of some key system metrics. These widgets can be color coded based on a value range, and clicking on a numeric widget can take users directly to the underlying records. 


For more information, see Numeric Result Widgets.


JavaScript Chart Widgets

Chart widgets on the dashboard can now use JavaScript rendering, meaning that they can be interacted with by clicking on the chart data, and they are responsive when resized on the screen.  



2098 JavaScript rendering makes graphical charts interactive

Graphical charts can now use JavaScript to render the chart, providing more interactivity. In the Chart setup, the Output Format for Graphical Chart has a new option - Use JavaScript Charts.





This option is available for all graphical chart types. JavaScript charts are interactive and allow you to select and de-select data on the x-axis. They are more suitable for scaling with different screen sizes. JavaScript charts are used for the newly redesigned Dashboards where they render all Chart Widgets. When they are distributed to disk or via email, they will have both the static, non-JavaScript version and the JavaScript version which can be opened in a browser and interacted with as normal.


For more information, see Report Output Types.

2126 Multi-level drill downs added to JavaScript charts

When creating a JavaScript graphical chart, a new tab has been added to the chart wizard called "Drill Down". This tab allows you to create drill-down levels, so that if a user clicks a section of the chart the system will immediately open a new chart with further details about the records in that section.  Multiple drill-down levels can be added to a single chart, and they will be accessed in the order they are listed in the Manage drill-downs section. 




In the example above, a JavaScript-enabled bar chart could show all contracts by status. You could add one drill-down for Contract Owner, and a second one for Date Created. In this case, when the "Active" bar was clicked on the chart, it would show all contracts in active status by owner.  When you clicked one of the Contract Owner bars on the drill-down chart, it would show all contracts owned by that user, by Date Created. 


You can add any number of drill-down definitions, but they will only be effective as long as there are fields and records to drill-down to on the chart. You can also navigate back to the source chart by clicking Back to Previous Level.




The drill-down setup is similar to the grouping options already available for HTML or Excel based reports.  It allows you to define the following:

  • Choose a native or linked field as the X axis for the drill-down chart.   
  • Define a sort order for the x axis items in the chart. 

Drill-downs work anywhere that a chart can be run - from a chart run from the charts menu, a chart widget in a dashboard, or a chart in a chart collection.  


Drill-downs will only affect the chart report type.

2125 New global variable controls whether dashboard charts automatically convert to JavaScript (interactive) charts

A new global variable was added to give administrators the option to convert all charts to the new JavaScript interactive charts in the new dashboards. The variable is called "Always use JavaScript Charts":



If the variable is set to No, the dashboard will format charts based on each individual chart's setting in the main chart wizard.  A new option was added to charts in this release:




If the "Use JavaScript Charts" option is selected, then when that chart is used in the dashboard and in HTML outputs, it will be displayed as the interactive JS chart.  If the option is deselected, it will use the old non-interactive format.


For a better user experience, we recommend in most cases setting this new global variable to Yes.  This will make all charts used in the dashboard interactive and allow new drill down capabilities.  


When running the chart outside of the dashboard, you can still set it to the non-interactive format by de-selecting "Use JavaScript Charts" in the Output Format.


Note that there are a few chart types such as funnel charts, which do not use the JavaScript chart functionality at all, and they will automatically display using the old technology.  Also, some line charts currently display better in the old chart format than in the JavaScript version.

2093 Salesforce sync can now be initiated from SFDC with an action button It is now possible to create an action button in the Salesforce Developer Console which initiates a synchronization between the Agiloft knowledgebase and Salesforce. For more information, see Initiate Salesforce Sync from the SFDC with an Action Button
2097 External sync no longer tries to read data that is not needed The external sync process was optimized with better data analysis so that it no longer attempts to read data that is not strictly needed for the synchronization. This makes the sync significantly faster.

For example if we are updating Salesforce and Agiloft takes precedence and no filters are used on the Salesforce side, previously we were reading the entire Salesforce object, which was unnecessary and led to slow performance.
2104 Responsive layout for the End User Interface

The End User Interface now has a responsive layout, which automatically adapts to changing screen sizes such as tablets and mobile devices. 



2118 Temporary Instructional text display option was added for text fields

The Display tab of the Short Text and Text field wizards now contains an option to enter instructional text. This will appear as greyed text in the field body, and will disappear once the user begins to enter text in the field. 





To change the color of the text used for the instructional text, a new Look and Feel option was added in the Forms tab: Temporary Instructional Text.




Note: this text color also applies to the "Search all tables..." global search text at the top of the power user interface.


2089 New scheduled import option to keep file unchanged after import

In the Import Action wizard, a new setting was added for the options of what to do with the imported file: "Do nothing to file". This will leave the file as is, leaving the file name unchanged. In many cases, the system does not have proper permissions to delete or rename the files being imported, and the two existing options were resulting in warning messages.


The new option can be used to avoid false warnings and error messages, and to allow the user to effectively choose to just overwrite the previous import file each time a new file is added.



2115 Keyboard Shortcuts expanded and personalization now supported Keyboard shortcuts were significantly redesigned to allow users to manage their own keyboard shortcut schemes, and to expand the areas where they could be used in many areas of the system. Shortcut key combinations can enhance your productivity, making it faster to navigate the Power User Interface and perform daily tasks like Direct Edit and data entry in record forms. For more information on how to use the new shortcuts, see Keyboard Shortcuts
2086 New document conversion action type added: "Convert PDF to Word"

In the Convert Document Format Action, a new document conversion type was added: "Convert PDF to MS Word".



Previously this action only allowed conversions from MS Word to PDF.    


The conversion uses the Aspose 3rd party library for the conversion by default.  It may alternatively use the Word API to run the conversion.  Using the Word API requires installation of MS Word 2016 or later during Agiloft installation, or access to a hosted server running the Word API, which is available to hosted customers.


Please note that the PDF to Word conversion is not 100% accurate, particularly for complex PDF files.  This is true whether Aspose or Word is used.  Microsoft specifically offers disclaimers about the quality of its conversion.

2013 Copy End-User Layout to the Staff User Layout button added In the Layout tab of the Table wizard, when the End User layout is selected, a new 'Copy this layout to the Staff User Layout' button was added, which transfers the current layout to the Staff User layout when clicked.
2075 New file size display when importing a KB to better predict timeline

In the admin console, when importing knowledgebases from the Home server, a new File size column was added to the KB list displayed during import. This is helpful to provide an approximate idea of how long it will take to perform the import.



2103 Look and Feel scheme text and wizard options have been improved The GUI text for the options in the Look and Feel wizard has been cleaned up and improved, and some inconsistencies in the text were removed. For more information, see Look and Feel End User and Power User Wizards
2068 New options for handling images in inbound emails provides greater control

In the Record Mapping tab of the Inbound Email wizard, some new options were added to manage images contained in the email body:




If you do not want to keep the image in the email body, you can choose to eliminate it from the incoming email, or save it as an attachment. 
2083 New global variable: "LDAP read timeout" added to enable a longer timeout for complex LDAP setup

A new global variable was added to the list of variables in the power user interface: "LDAP read timeout". By default the timeout for LDAP reads is 10 seconds. Sometimes this is not long enough, for example if the LDAP Filter uses a complex search, or if the connection speed to your LDAP server during LDAP sync is too slow.  This variable allows the admin to configure a longer timeout value, so that the operation will succeed instead of timing out before completion.



2099 Entity set synchronization has been optimized for faster performance The sync process for entity set synchronizations has been optimized to reduce multiple iterations, and it now performs significantly faster than before. 
2080 Groups with Create/Edit Chart Collection Permission can now view all Chart Collections

The Group permission for Allow Modification of chart collections (formerly called Dashboards) was improved.  If the "Allow group to create/edit chart collections for all users" option is selected, groups with this permission can also view all chart collections, even if they have not been made available to this group. This makes cleanup and review of chart collections easier for administrative users. 




Please note, this release has renamed Dashboards to Chart Collections, while also renaming staff home pages to Dashboards.  This permission enhancement applies to the newly named Chart Collections.

2054 Look and Feel option to control row hyperlink colors

In the Look and Feel wizard for the Power User Interface at Tables > Records, a new option was added to control row font coloring for hyperlinks. 



If selected, this forces the display settings for row font colors to take precedence over the hyperlink font settings in cases where the table view field is a hyperlink. This will prevent the possibility of hyperlink font colors clashing with the look and feel scheme for the table view. 


By default, this option is not enabled. 

2132 Search operators for multi-value fields have been improved

When creating a search that compares multivalue linked fields to sets of values, the functionality of the search operators was modified and the wording was updated.  Several operators previously did not work at all when the multivalue field had more than one value.  That has been corrected.


The most significant change is that the "is fully contained in" operator behavior was modified to more closely match its name, and its former behavior is now implemented with a new operator called "Overlaps with items in".   During the upgrade, any saved searches on a multivalue linked field using the "is fully contained in" operator will be automatically updated to use the new operator "overlaps with items in" so that its behavior will be fully consistent with the previous release.  


The same is true for "is not fully contained in", which will now be replaced with "does not overlap with items in" so that the search will behave as it did previously.


To explain with an example, previously "is fully contained in" did not accurately describe its behavior, which was to find a match if two fields being compared had any overlapping value. For instance:

ABC "is fully contained in" CDE was found to be true because C was contained in both.

ABC "is not fully contained in" CDE was found to be false because C was contained in both.


During the upgrade searches such as these will be changed to the new operator(s) so that they will find the same results as before.


Here is a full list of behavior and changes provided for multivalue search operators in this release:


Is fully contained in <</is not fully contained in !<<: These operators now match only if the right operand set contains (or doesn't contain)  all the elements from the left, as the wording implies. 

For example:

A,B,C is fully contained in A,B,C,D = true

A,B,C is not fully contained in A,B,C,D = false

A,B,C is fully contained in A,C,D = false

A,B,C is not fully contained in A,C,D = true


Overlaps with items in/does not overlap with items in: These operators match if the operands (the values on the left and right side of the search equation) have at least one matching value. 

Note: this operator was previously called "contains/does not contain" and has been renamed for clarity.  So both the former "is fully contained in" and "contains" have been remapped during the upgrade to the new value of "Overlaps with items in".

For example:

A, B, C overlaps with items in C, D, E = true

A,B,C does not overlap with items in C,D,E = false

A,B,C overlaps with items in D,E,F = false

A,B,C does not overlap with items in D,E,F = true.


Equals =/Does not equal !=: These operators match if both operands have exactly the same elements.  Previously, this found no results as soon as the value on the left had multiple items.

For example:

A,B,C equals A,B,C = true

A,B,C does not equal A,B,C = false

A,B,C equals A,C = false

A,B,C does not equal A,C = True


Fully contains/does not fully contain !~=: These operators match if the left operand set contains all elements from the right.  It has been renamed from "Contains string" to more closely represent its actual behavior.

For example:

A,B,C contains A,C = true

A,B,C does not fully contain A,C = false

A,B,C contains A,E = false

A,B,C does not fully contain A,E = true


In general, all searches for multi-value linked fields now match on actual field values (items) and not substrings. Thus, if a search where field AAA searches on 'is fully contained in' with matching values AA, BAA, AAAB, the search would result in false because AAA is a different value than AAAB.


The new operators are shown below:

2134 Comparisons of multivalue linked fields and selected fields for ID values can use the "is not fully contained in, !<<" operator

When performing a search for an ID field of type "link to selected fields" from a linked table, where the comparison is from a multivalue linked field, it is now possible to use the "is not fully contained in, !<<" search operator. Previously, this search only contained the "is fully contained in, <<" operator.


For example, if you wish to link a new record from another table (in this case from employees to approvals) by searching the ID field, but you do not want the search to contain any records that are already selected in the multivalue linked field, you can set up the following restriction on the field Options tab: "Approval ID is not fully contained in Variable $contacts_to_approval":




When the lookup was done on the selected fields table, it would only show IDs that were not already contained in the multivalue linked field "ID".


This also includes IDs that have a subset of the numbers in other IDs. For example, if IDs 1356 and 25 were already selected, the search would still return IDs 56 and 425.

2059 If-Then-Else actions can now be inserted inside other If-Then-Else or Linked Record actions

If-Then-Else actions can now be inserted within other If-Then-Else action chains, or into Linked Record actions, in cases where the actions are edited via the Rules wizard or the Actions tab of the table setup. Previously this was only possible when editing an action button.