Overview
The following release notes detail new features and enhancements specific to WEBcnx 2018 R1. In some cases, these sections provide links to additional detailed information within this user guide to provide further supporting information.
Task View
One of the most significant changes in WEBcnx 2018 R2 is the introduction of the Task Object Dialog, which replaces the legacy TaskView.aspx page. Much like the Project and Layer dialogs introduced in WEBcnx 2018, users can now view tasks, execute workflows and navigate to associated designs, customers and users without having leaving the dashboard, giving a significant speed and performance boost.
The summary panel at the top of the dialog contains a preview of any associated designs, alongside the task attributes previously located at the top of the Task View page. Some of these attributes - namely, Created Date, Created By and Effort - have been moved to the new Timeline tab, alongside the Started and Completed fields (which show when the Task Status was set to In Progress and Completed, respectively) and the Actual Lifetime field, which shows the full time from task creation to completion
New email notification for overdue items
Additional email notification items have been added to WEBcnx 2018 R2 to help users manage deadlines. The following can now be configured in the Admin section of the application:
- An item I requested becomes overdue
- An item assigned to me becomes overdue
- An item assigned to one of my user groups becomes overdue
- An item I'm subscribed to becomes overdue
- An overdue item is assigned to me
- An overdue item is assigned to one of my user groups
- An item I requested will become overdue in xx days/hours
- An item assigned to me will become overdue in xx days/hours
- An item assigned to one of my user groups will become overdue in xx days/hours
- An item I'm subscribed to will become overdue in xx days/hours
- An item that will become overdue in xx days/hours is assigned to me
- An item that will become overdue in xx days/hours is assigned to one of my user groups
Document Management
As part of a wider project it was highlighted that there is a great need to be able to associate more elements with documents on a whole for example linked designs and being able to view tasks that are linked to a specific document. Further to this it was also decided that specific document approvals as well as searching for documents was also a big factor of this development
With this in mind it was decided that the best way forward to accommodate the needs a new object dialogue would be given as part of the document management process this can be seen below. This can be accessed by double clicking an attached document or by using “View this document” on the navigation bar
The main information displayed about the selected document can be seen at the top of the dialogue and below this a user is then able to add tags to the document view different versions, relationships and history of the document.
Design Saved Searches in Object Dialogues
In WEBcnx 2018, we introduced the ability to add custom pages to Customer, Site, User and User Group Object Dialogs, based on Task Saved Searches. In WEBcnx 2018 R2, we have expanded this functionality to include Design searches. Like the Task custom pages, these can be added using the Add Page button at the bottom-left of the dialog.
When selecting a design saved search for Customer or Site dialogues, the page will only display designs relating to that specific customer or site. For User dialogues, the page can display designs created by or modified by the user in question. For User Group dialogues, the same is true, but the filter is expanded to all users within that group.
Advanced Search Approval tasks
It is now possible for a user to search for any tasks awaiting approval, using the Type field, as shown below.
User Interface
WEBcnx 2018 R2 contains many significant aesthetic improvements to the User Interface. The most prominent changes can be found within the Dashboard Browsers, as seen below (before & after)
Alongside other cosmetic improvements, we have also improved our font management system to ensure more consistency across browsers
Workflow
WEBcnx 2018 R2 comes with an updated workflow API, to add more customisation to workflow-created tasks.
- CreateTask - The CreateTask activity now has a Site property, which allows workflows to assign an Enterprise site to newly created jobs (for Enterprise installations only). When a site is selected within WEBcnx, the customer selector is filtered accordingly. In order to maintain this compatibility, it is important that when using the Site workflow property, a compatible Customer must be provided, otherwise an exception will be thrown.
In addition to this new property, the behaviour of TriggerOtherWorkflowsOnPublish on CreateTask has changed slightly. In previous versions, it was only considered for new tasks that were manually published. It now applies to auto-published tasks as well, which allows users to create smaller, fragmented workflows, which can all be fired in a single step. - Task Subscriptions - The new TaskSubscription activity, workflow can be used to add, remove or edit Task Subscriptions. Alongside the User and TaskId fields, the Email and Watched fields can be set to True or False, to allow for better control over notifications for Tasks created in Workflow
Removed Features
- "Job Creation" Custom Action - In previous versions of WEBcnx, it was possible to create a "Job Creation" Custom Action, which could be fired from Project and Layer pages to create a new job and automatically assign the design in question. The new Project and Layer Object Dialogs introduced in WEBcnx 2018 have a native "Create a job for this Project/Layer" button, making the Custom Action redundant. As a result, actions of this type have been removed in WEBcnx 2018 R2