Overview
The following release notes detail new features and enhancements specific to WEBcnx 2017 R2. In some cases, these sections provide links to additional detailed information within this user guide to provide further supporting information.
Customisation of "Task Browser" Details View
With the Introduction WEBcnx 2017 R2 there has been a lot of development surrounding the customisation of task browsers on a user to user basis bringing the ability for more dynamic and adaptable dashboards to suit individual needs.
Configure Detail View
The Addition of Configure detail view within 2017 R2 has introduced a robust way to allow a user to customise what is seen within the dialogues on the dashboards.
Configure Detail view can be accessed via the filtering option within a Dialogue as shown below.
Once Selected the below dialogue will appear.
From here a user will have different options to allow the customisation of how the data appears within the dialogue this have been listed below.
- Drag and Drop columns to rearrange the display - The user is able to select a column and then drag and drop this to another location within the list.
- Delete selected columns from display - A user is able to remove a selected column from the list by first selecting the desired column and then using the Remove function
- Reset to default view - If a user has previously made changes to the Columns list and wishes to return this to its default state they are able to by using the Reset to Defaults option.
This will change the list back to its original state and will remove and additional fields that have been added including any custom fields
The additional functionality that has been added to this section has given the user the ability to display a dialogue in a way that suits them. Overall the change is something that is also used in other features introduced in 2017 R2 such as Shared Saved Searches
Further information on both Show Summary and the Addition of Custom Fields will be listed within this section
Adding Custom Fields
Along with the ability to configure a default view for both a Shared Saved Search and a task dashboard dialogue users are now able to add custom fields that have been created to these searches. This can easily be done within the configure detail view page using the top drop down and search field
In order for a custom field to appear within the drop down list you must create a custom field and add this to an item type. There must be at least one instance of the custom field submitted in order for any information to appear.
For this example I have created a custom field under the name of Test Int and added this to an item type.
It is now possible to select this field and add this to the configuration view and move this to the appropriate location.
This will then be reflected within the search results.
- Before
- After
Show Summary
The Show Summary feature has been added as a part of the configure details view with the aim to provide a total of any numeric columns within the selected search. This can be activated by opening the Configure Detail View as shown below.
Once this have been activated this will results in a total appearing at the bottom of the selected object dialogue
Currently the Feature will only show a total of any numeric columns. The total shown is the total value of the entire result set, not just the items displayed in the current page of results.
View Project From Task
It is now possible to view a design from a task directly from the designs tab within a task. As shown below. This will navigate the user to view the full project or layer page in the Designs Dashboard.
Design Library
CAD Viewer
Further improvements have been made to the CAD viewer in 2017 R2 and further functionality has been added to the viewer which is visible below.
This introduction of rulers and extents of the design being viewed. This also shows what units the scale is being presented in. In the below screenshot we can see from the value within the red box the scale here is displayed in inches.
The ruler is adjustable with the movements of the drawing as shown below and the red text shows the design extents.
The material direction is now present on the viewer and can be easily identified using the below tool located below the main action bar.
The material direction box will show if the direction is Horizontal, Vertical or has no direction assigned.
Updated Design Dashboard
There have been several changes to the Designs Dashboard as part of the 2017 R2 upgrade. There is no longer a browse or drag and drop import option present on this page as these have been moved to the Launch menu as discussed in Browse Moved to Launch Menu.
With this functionality being moved to the launch menu it has allowed more screen real estate to allow a secondary main Object dialogue to be introduced as shown below.
Further to this the Designs dashboard now has the same functionality seen in the Task Dashboard whereby a user is able to drag and drop a saved search within the saved search dialogue into one of the four free available widget areas.
Overall the aim here was to increase the flexibility and usability of the design dashboard and to introduce further continuity throughout the application.
Design Dashboard Saved Searches
Within the Designs Dashboard it is now possible for a user to include custom saved searches which has been fully explained in the shared saved searches section of this document.
It is possible to then display these custom searches within the design dashboard on one of the four available object dialogues. This can be achieved by dragging and dropping the desired search from the saved search dialogue.
As well as being able to show custom saved searches on this page you are also able to control the saved search features for a selected search with the following items located on the action bar
- View this Item - this will open the selected search result in its own dialog.
- Edit this Item – this will allow a user to edit the name, description and who the search is currently shared with. Any shared searches are indicated with the icon shown below.
- Hide Selected Item – This will simply hide the report from the list of saved searches for the user. If a search is hidden by the owner it will not hide the search for any users/user groups it is currently shared with.
- Delete Selected Item – this will permanently delete the selected item and will also remove this search from any users and user groups previously shared with.
Once a user has had a search shared with them they will then be able to see this within the shared searches dialogue on the task dashboard
Directory
Custom Pages on Object Dialogs
Custom pages on Directory objects such as Customer, User, User Group and Site allows a user to add saved searches to those dialogs for easier access and with the added context of the object you have displayed. For instance, a saved search that shows all Tasks can be added to a customer dialog. When viewing any customer, the saved search will only show the Tasks for that viewed customer. This saves the user from creating many variations of a saved search or having to filter a more generic saved search to view the information they wish to see.
User Profile
Changing user name and login ID
Further functionality has been added to the User dialogue page that now allows you to change both the User name and Log in ID. This can be completed on the User Dialogue page shown below.
The change can only be made using an account with user management administration privileges.
To do this a user would simply have to select the desired user from the directory dashboard. Once here the user is able to select the boxes containing Login ID and Full name and clear the value using the X located to the right hand side of the field.
You will then be able to enter a new value into the fields as shown below.
Once this has been completed the user profile will automatically save and you will be able to inform the user of any changes made to the account.
User Browser Last Connected
A new addition to the User table on the Directory dashboard has been made to show the last connected date for any users that are displayed within the Users object dialogue.
Previously this was located within the individual user page where as it is now possible to look at multiple users last connected dates as well as being able to export the list into an Excel format.
This functionality is only available to users with "User Management" privileges.
User Subscription
There have been changes to the user subscription pages over the WEBcnx 2017 and 2017 R2 Upgrades to allow a user to have more management over their subscriptions. The subscription page is now located within the user profile page.
The new Subscription section allows a user to manage subscriptions for both Tasks and Customer & Addresses from this page. From this page it is possible to remove any subscriptions that have been added to the user account. It is also possible to view a selected subscription from this page by using the View option located in the top left of the action bar.
User Translation
Additional functionality has been added to the user translation feature which can be found on the user dialogue page.
Users are now able to select from a number of different languages from the drop down menu which when selected will be applied to the user profile and reflected throughout WEBcnx
Other aspects of the application also benefit from the translation features such as shared saved searches. The user is able to translate both the Name and Description given to the search upon saving.
Upon clicking a user is able to then enter the desired translation for the search that will display for any users when the default translation is set on the user level
Search
The introduction of Saved Searches has been a key element in the WEBcnx 2017 R2 upgrade and allows users a versatile way of creating shared searches that can be distributed among Users, User Groups and User group types. This eliminates the process of creating the same search on more than one account and offers a central way of administering saved searches between many Users from one singular account where necessary.
Shared Saved Searches
New functionality surrounding saved searched has been introduced as part of the 2017 R2 upgrade. A user is now able to share a saved search with other users and user groups on the system. The main aim behind this new feature is to allow more visibility over custom searches that can be completed on the system between users and allow users to share consistent searches and save duplication.
A good example of this would be if a particular user group needed to see a search containing all tasks related to one customer. This could be completed by one user and shared with an entire user group on the system with ease at the point of creation.
A further example would be when a user needs to share a saved search with a few other users in the system, they are now able to select the individual users they wish to share the report with at the point of creation, can be completed via the saved search pages (Both Design and Task)
Once a search has been completed the user is then able to save this search as well as select any users or user groups they wish to share the search with as shown below.
Once selected the users and user groups that have been selected will appear within the dialogue as shown below.
To view any shared saved searches the user is able to open up the saved searches menu with in the Task or Design search pages.
To Identify which searches within the list have been shared with others there is a Shared symbol located in the far left Shared column as shown in the above.
Further to this there is also some further functionality that has been added to this page,
Configure Detail View for a saved search that the user has created. This has been explained in the previous section of the What’s New Guide under section – Custom Task Browser Details > Configure Detail View
If the configuration of the search is changed the changes will reflect with the users and user groups it is currently shared with see next section - Setting Default display columns for shared searches for full details
- View this item - this will load the selected search results in a dialog.
- Edit this Item – this will allow a user to edit the below details such as name, description and who the search is currently shared with.
- Hide Selected Item – This will simply hide the report from the list of saved searches for the user. If a search is hidden by the owner it will not hide the search for any users/user groups it is currently shared with.
- Delete Selected Item – this will permanently delete the selected item and will also remove this search from any users and user groups previously shared with.
Once a user has had a search shared with them they will then be able to see this within the shared searches dialogue on the task dashboard
Setting Default Display Columns
It is important to note that when a search is made the owner of that search will be in control of what information is shown to any shared user. This means that if the owner were to add, remove or re-arrange any columns within the saved search configure detail view then this would be reflected in any of the users this search has been shared with.
All features of the Configure Detail View have been explained in the previous section of this guide – Custom Task Browser Details. The same logic and rules are applied here for all three sections and can be applied to any Shared saved Search
It is possible for a user who has had a search shared with them to further adjust the display on their own account however they will only be able to adjust the current columns that have been shared. If the owner has removed any columns from the original search results these will need to be added separately on the users account.
Once any changes have been made on the users account they will not adjust and configuration on any other accounts but their own as shown in the window below.
Advanced Search
The Global Search tool, as well as having some style changes, now includes direct access to both the Advanced Task Search and Advanced Design Search from any page in the application.
User Interface
There are several updates to the overall page structure designed to improve access to commonly used Actions such as advanced searches, design browsing and report creation. This update includes changes to the Launch menu to streamline its overall use.
Launch menu
The Launch menu has undergone some changes within this update, this menu is now contained within a drop down menu instead of a separate dialogue used in past versions. The functionality of this feature has not changed however the way this is being displayed has these changes can be seen below.
WEBcnx 2017 (OLD)
Upon clicking Launch the below dialogue appears
WEBcnx 2017 R2 (New)
Upon hover the New Drop down list will appear
The changes made here are to support a more dynamic centralised way of completing certain activities from anywhere in the application. You can see from the above that there are also some new default items in the list which have been explained in the sections below
Browse moved to Launch Menu
Browse function that has previously been located on the designs and standards dashboard has now been moved and included as part of the launch drop down menu as shown below.
This has had a positive impact on the application on a whole as a user is now able to access the browse function from anywhere within the application by using the Launch drop down menu rather than having to navigate to either the Designs or Standards dashboard
Import Design moved to Launch Menu
As part of the move toward more dynamic dashboards and overall usability of the application the Import Design function currently named “Drawing Import” has been moved from the Designs page to the new Launch drop down menu as shown below.
From here you are able to load files in two way to upload files, you can either drag and drop a file within the window or browse to the file location by using the browse function.
Create Report moved to Launch Menu
As part of the move toward more dynamic dashboards and overall usability of the application the Create a report function that has previously been located on the Reports dashboard has now been moved and included as part of the launch drop down menu as shown below.
From here it the user will be able to select which report they wish to create and complete the process.
Browser Select All Function
It is now possible to select multiple elements within an object dialogue. This can be completed by using Shift click once an initial selection has been made and then selecting the secondary element of elements that you wish to select.
Alternatively to select all available elements within an object dialogue you are able to use CTRL + Double click on any of the elements within the dialogue
Browser Export
Additional work has been completed on the overall Browser Export Functionality. The aim of this was to increase performance and handle the export of larger amounts of data from database lists. As well as this you are now able to see the progress of the export on screen.
Even though performance tweaks have been made to this function exporting a larger amount of rows from the browser may still take a considerable amount of time. It is recommended that the browser export is used within reason and to remove any unwanted columns of data where possible when completing exports.
Other Enhancements
- There is a new document attachment icon added to the following areas to indicate that one or more documents are attached:
- Tasks
- Jobs
- Projects
- Layers
- Customers
- Sites
This can be identified by the following symbol being present
Workflow
Workflow Designer and Monitor are now hosted within the WEBcnx Administration tool
To reduce additional installers and consolidate our administration tools, we've moved the Workflow Designer and Monitor to the Administration tool. We no longer distribute additional installers for the Workflow Designer and Workflow Monitor, to use either of these tools simply install the workflow designer, go to 'Tools' then 'Workflow'.
VBScript Evaluations in Code
The VBScript activity within workflow provides great flexibility to the user allowing them to perform scripts through workflow. In the past this activity has been limited by only being able to output one simple object. This meant that if you had a script where you needed to output multiple values, it would have to be either a concatenated list within the one object, or by wrapping a complex object within the simple object itself.
Outputs from the script can now be defined within the script itself using our new keyword EvaluationResult_ followed by your own variable name. i.e. EvaluationResult_MyString. You can use as many of these as you like!
Other Additions
New properties of Task Object
- "CustomAttributes". Returns a list of all custom attributes belonging to that task.
- CreateTask activity now has a new property "ItemTypeID" - This allows the user to specify the ID of the Item Type rather than the Item Types name. This is much less prone to breaking as Item Type ID's will never change.
- New ModifyApprovalOutcome workflow activity - This allows you to change the approval outcome of a task
Administration Features
- List all changes related to the administration of the product here, along with their issue references
Reported Bug Fixes
- Task Management Date/Time selector issues not selecting correct date - In some rare cases, the user is unable to select a date for a Job/Task 2 days in the future with out this displaying as tomorrow.
WEB-300962 - Designs Dashboard - Count Impact users not returning any values. Created By and Modified By Browser filters are failing to return any results, causing an exception.
WEB-300693 - Design Dashboard - Reinstate raster as 2D layer view option. Due to a problem with some dimension text sizes in the interactive viewer, the former raster viewer has been reintroduced as an option.
WEB-300749 - Reports - Cannot specify 'n' in previous nth days for a report search filter. When creating time based reports and using the filter "Within the previous n days", the user was not asked for the number of days.
WEB-300187 - Administration - Value Mapping two source fields into one. Only one visible source field can be mapped into a destination field. If two source mappings were defined, an error was being generated instead of the visible field being mapped.
WEB-300428
Removed Features
- Design Import - The design import option previously displayed on the design dashboard has now been removed. This is now located within the launch menu as explained in the launch menu article.
Advance Design & Task Search - The advance design and task search has now been removed from task and designs dashboard and consolidated into one function as explained in the Advanced search section.
Standalone Workflow designer - There is usually some related content you can link to. Have the links replace this page instead of opening in a new page. The reader is at the end of the article now.