Overview
WEBcnx 2023.1 streamlines the creation of Standard Design Styles. An updated user experience makes creating new designs from Impact's huge library of standard design styles so much quicker and easier.
Other improvements in WEBcnx 2023.1 include updates to administration tools and settings, improved security for user managers to log in as other users and support for thousand separators.
Design Standards
The Design Standards feature in WEBcnx has had a significant update, both with the user interface moving to more modern, faster controls, and also to add new features that have only previously been available in Impact.
For corrugated standards, the material selection has been given more space with its own full page and the Advanced Corrugated Material Properties panel, if using in Impact, has also been promoted to its own page. This gives more space to browse and configure the material for your design.
Display text and separators have also been added, and these comply with any visibility rules that have been designed into the Standard. Choice type options in some Standards have the ability to control the preview displayed. Most of these rare cases have now also been supported in this update.
Once your design has been created, a new Layer View option is available to allow users to preview the design, no matter how many layers were created. This gives users instant feedback on the design they've created, before saving the design.
References
WEB-48824, WEB-53946, WEB-300006, WEB-305556, WEB-305557, WEB-305602, WEB-305614, WEB-305622, WEB-305639, WEB-305642, WEB-305650, WEB-305707, WEB-305728, WEB-305785, WEB-305902
User Management Security
Users that have User Management Privileges have the ability to assume the identity of another user “Log in as another user”. This allows them to ensure newly created user accounts have access to the dashboards and content they need as well as supporting colleagues with any problems. It also safeguards security as it’s not necessary for the user manager to have knowledge of the password of the user they’re logging in as. The new security measures prevent a user manager from logging in as another user with higher privileges than themselves.
Enhancements have also been made to allow the user manager to more easily revert to their own account via the user menu, saving valuable time in avoiding the need to sign out and back in again.
Additionally, all log entries clearly state that they’re created by the user manager logged in as the user whose identity they’ve assumed.
The list of effective privileges of a user has been updated with a hierarchical layout to make it easier to view and understand the combined privileges a user has, based on the user groups they belong to.
References
WEB-305359, WEB-305367, WEB-305369
Support for Thousand Separators in Numbers
Numeric unit fields such as Distance, Area and Weight, have always been formatted based on your regional settings, including displaying thousand separators. This has now been extended to Integer Type fields (whole numbers) and Real Number Type fields.
Optional thousand separators can be added to new and existing Integer Type Custom Fields. This change affects all Task Types that are using the Integer Custom Field.
Thousand separators are now always displayed for new and existing Real Type Custom Fields.
When creating or editing an Integer Custom Field, you can turn on the option to Display Thousand Separators. These are then displayed based on your regional settings.
Thousand Separators are also displayed in displayed columns and Summary Rows.
References
WEB-48256, WEB-305488
Workflow
- User.TimeZoneInfo - For tasks where Date and Time Custom Fields have been used, it may be important to be able to determine the time zone of the user the task is assigned to or requested by. A new API method has been added to Workflow to allow the workflow author to get properties of the selected users time zone in the format Database.ConnecedUser.TimeZoneInfo.DisplayName as an example. If this is written to the Server Log, you would get a log entry "(UTC+00:00 Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London".
WEB-305665
Change to WEBcnx Version Naming
For major updates, WEBcnx has been released for some time using a commercial name based on the year; WEBcnx 2022. Additionally, minor updates to this throughout the lifecycle of that version are made, appending R2, R3, etc. to the end of the name; WEBcnx 2022 R2. Behind the scenes, an internal version number is always incremented that relates to a commercial release; 13.0 = WEBcnx 2022, 13.1 = WEBcnx 2022 R2. Some users are more familiar with this nomenclature.
With recent changes to development methodology, WEBcnx will be released on a much more frequent schedule, with each release being smaller and more focussed on key areas of the software. As such, we’ve moved away from a “big” release and a series of smaller updates to that in favour of a much more flexible development process that’s more responsive to the changing needs of our customers. A simpler naming and numbering structure therefore seemed appropriate from WEBcnx 2023 onwards. The first release in 2023 will therefore be 2023.1, the second release being 2023.2, etc.
Information about the current version can always be found on the user menu.
References
WEB-304987, WEB-305219, WEB-305222
Performance Enhancements
The following performance enhancements have been made across WEBcnx.
- As a user Administrator, viewing the Database Window details on a user profile
WEB-305196 - A slowness when using drop-down selectors for User Groups has been resolved. This has improved performance loading the Directory or any other dashboard containing a drop-down user group selector.
WEB-300439 - The performance when viewing task types, especially those with many custom fields, has been significantly improved.
WEB-305571
Other Enhancements
- The Server Log has previously only displayed the last 1,000 log entries. This has now been extended to support searching and filtering on the entire log history. It is also possible to define a date range to search within.
WEB-305397 - The system “Tasks” page on the design dialog has been converted to a Saved Search driven Custom Page to give greater flexibility on who this is visible for and what it’s named as. This allows this saved search to be updated with additional parameters instead of showing all tasks linked to the design; tasks within a given time period or tasks of certain types, for instance.
WEB-304846 - There are four possible view types for most content in WEBcnx; Details, Card, Content and Tile. Whilst there are internal defaults used for these, if the administrator hasn't configured one of the view types, the user wouldn't see information they may be expecting. A change has been made so that if the administrator hasn't defined a specific view, the user will not be able to select it. This prevents the administrator having to create specific views that may not be wanted.
WEB-304083
A new option has been added to drop-down filters to allow you to select all records where a value has not been specified.
This option is particularly useful if you've added new fields to your database and want to update older records that don't yet have a value.
WEB-305739 - Support for searching on layers of all types has been added to allow users to find a combination of layers that match the search results.
WEB-304801
Administration Features
- Working Calendars - Over the last couple of versions, we've been carrying out an overhaul of the user interface of the administration settings in WEBcnx to modernise it and improve the user experience for administrators. The Maintenance > Working Calendars settings have now completed. NOTE: This feature is for future use. Talk to a member of our support team for more information.
WEB-305041, WEB-305438 - Manage Sites- Selected users are now able to edit Site information via an editable Database Window. Other users can have a default read-only Database Window shared with them if they have a need to view Site informationWEB-305374
- Preview Task - When designing Task (aka Item Types) forms, it's useful to be able to test these to make sure they're working as intended. The older mechanism for doing this has been replaced with a new Preview Task dialog. This is available from the main toolbar at the top of the screen.WEB-305492, WEB-305493
- Form Designer Update - The Item Type form designer has had the first phase of a user interface refresh. Category and Group
WEB-305496, WEB-305497
- Data Export Custom Actions - A new Custom Action type "Data Export" gives administrators greater control of who is able to export data from Saved Search lists and which Saved Searches they're able to export. This includes the Customer list which was not previously available.
There are several setting types of Data Export to allow administrators the greatest control of what can be exported, such as, Addresses, Contacts, Customers and Documents.
Included in this list is a special case, Saved Search. This works in conjunction with a new option in the Saved Search itself which controls whether the result can be exported "Allow search results to be exported". The owner of the Saved Search can set this at the time they create it or at any time afterwards.
WEB-305565, WEB-305566 - Display Viewer for Unsaved Project Previews - A new option has been added to the Layer View settings to optionally display a multi-layer preview page to unsaved drawings after running a Design Standard or Importing a design file. This allows the user to see all layers that have been created before saving. It is recommended this option is turned on.
WEB-305642 - Database Table Relationships - Database Administration has had the 3 Table Relationship options consolidated into the relevant database tables for Address, Customer and Revisions from the main toolbar.
WEB-305276
- Document Access Right Configuration - The default setting to control Access Rights for documents has been consolidated into the Document page of Database Administration from the Impact Configuration settings.
WEB-305277
- Database Table Display Name - Users may have noticed that WEBcnx displays some Impact database table names as their system names; ONE_UP, MULTI_UP, THREE_D, etc. A new table Display Name allows the administrator to define an alternate name such as One-Up, Multi-Up and 3D. These are now displayed consistently throughout WEBcnx.
WEB-305306
System Requirements
All system requirements should meet the minimum set out in our hardware and software guide.
- Minimum Supported Version of Impact - Impact 2022 (v12.0)
- Minimum Supported Version of nServer - nServer 2022 (v12.0)
The following changes to system requirements for this version have been made.
- .NET Framework - As per WEBcnx 13.2, WEBcnx 23.1 requires .NET Framework 4.8 running on the server and anywhere the WEBcnx companion tools or Impact WEBcnx Plugin is to be deployed.
WEB-301914 - Mobile iOS Version - To benefit from the latest innovations in internet browser technology, the minimum supported version of iOS for mobile Safari users is now 13.4.
WEB-305710
Installation & Configuration
- The WEBcnx installer files now include the WEBcnx version number to make it easier to verify the correct installers are present before installing.
WEB-305432
Reported Bug Fixes
- Public discussion notifications sometimes sent to everyone. A hot fix is also available for WEBcnx 2022 R2 and R3. Please contact a member of our support team for further information
WEB-305487
Removed Features
- Quick Reports- This feature, available from the Reports dashboard in WEBcnx 2019 and earlier, has been replaced by the new Chart View on all supported Dashboard Widgets and Saved Searches. The newer version is much easier to use and is much more feature rich. Old Quick Reports were still available in legacy mode in WEBcnx 2022 to facilitate a migration path to the new Report View and has now been removed completely.
WEB-305325 - Search Sites User Group Privilege - The Search Sites User Group Privilege enabled users to view the Sites widget on the Directory (WEBcnx 2022 and older). With new configurable Dashboards, administrators have greater control over who is able to view Site information in multi-site environments so this privilege has been removed. See Manage Sitesabove for related details.
WEB-305374 - Data Export Action - All users have been able to export data from any Saved Search list in WEBcnx, other than the Customer list. To provide greater flexibility for its use, this has been replaced with a new Custom Action type that achieves the same thing but with the ability to control who can use it. See Data Export Custom Actionfor more details.
WEB-305565
Further Reading
- Custom Fields
- Design Standards
- Item Types
- Summary Rows
- User Management