Release notes version 6.5

Transcription

1 Release notes version 6.5

2 Novacura Flow version 6.5 Release date: Introduction In this version of Novacura Flow we put focus on planning, connectivity and offline. Get your people planned on the right activities on the right time, connect them to the services they need, and let them work offline! This might just be the best version of Novacura Flow, ever. New features Calendar control for all clients... 3 Visual planning in the Portal Gantt, Kanban & Resource Buckets... 4 Updated Offline, enhancing usability... 6 Run workflows on a schedule... 7 Updated Studio Launcher, for launching of different Studio versions... 7 User exits with condition Available If... 8 FlowScript Type support... 8 Keyboard handling in the Windows 10 client (incl. scanning support)... 9 Support for Azure AD authentication... 9 Connector: Html To Pdf... 9 Updates in the Flow Connector... 9 Generic REST Connector, fully integrated with the Studio

3 Calendar control for all clients The new Calendar Control makes it easy to handle any date based items. You can for example get an overview of all your planned work or your reported hours. You can also report your time or create a new task directly from the Calendar. The Calendar consists of two parts; the Calendar itself where colors can be used to indicate for example the number of reported hours and a table presenting the contents from the selected day. From the table part it is possible to easily create new items for a day or, if needed, also delete items. As usual, everything is configurable from the Flow Studio and the configuration is similar to the already existing Grid control. And best of all, the Calendar Control works nicely in all clients (with a small exception for the Windows CE Client), regardless of type or size. 3

4 Visual planning in the Portal Gantt, Kanban & Resource Buckets In this version of Flow we release three brand new Portlets for Visual Planning, each with its own view of the planning information: - The Kanban: Gives you a process based view of your activities. Where in the process are your activities right now? - The Gantt: Gives you a time based view of your projects and activities. When are your activates planned to be executed? Being a classic Gantt, you can of course also see dependencies between activities and who is assigned to an activity. - The Resource Buckets: Gives you a new and innovative way to easily see who is doing what. The Kanban: The Gantt: 4

5 The Resource Bucket: For all three portlets you have, as usual, the possibility to configurable the data source, using either an SQL query or a workflow, which will fetch all the data you need for visualizing planning information. Drag and drop is the way to change the planning in these portlets, and each drag and drop event can trigger a workflow executing the business logic needed for the event. So when it comes to planning, the possibilities with these three portlets are endless. 5

6 Updated Offline, enhancing usability The Offline capability in Flow has been updated and improved in several different ways, reflecting needs expressed by both people using offline applications and people designing offline applications. This list summarizes what we have improved to this release: - Display transactions and error messages: Now a user can see all transaction made for the offline execution and which transaction that has gone wrong, if any. This is made possible using swimlane crossing configuration, where you now can define a text that should be shown to the user (as seen in the picture to the left, under MyWork ). - Synchronize Seeds with Offline data: Optionally, a swimlane in an offline workflow, can be marked having Seeded Offline. Setting this option means that you use Offline data as seeds to the workflow, making the seeds being downloaded with the rest of the offline data. Why? By doing this you can now avoid that seeds and offline data get out of sync. - Quit a started offline workflow anytime: Previously you were not allowed to quit a workflow after a split in the workflow was made. That restriction is now removed, provided that the outgoing branch does not re-join the main workflow. Transactions put in the synchronization queue will still be executed even though user quits the workflow. - Preventing loss of data when offline: When working with offline data, the user now gets notified whenever there is a risk of losing created data, e.g. if the user tries to log out before all transactions are synchronized. - Cancel an ongoing offline download task: In the My Offline Data section it is now possible to cancel an ongoing download task. - Performance improvements and fixes: Several issues regarding performance and problems with offline workflows and data have been fixed to this release. 6

7 Run workflows on a schedule A very useful feature for this release is the Workflow Scheduler. With this new configuration on a workflow, you can make a Machine Workflow or a User Workflow starting in a Machine swimlane run on a schedule. The possibilities with this are limitless. Check for new invoice files in a directory and launch a workflow that creates a preliminary invoice in your ERP system and then sends the invoice for authorization. Or maybe create a connector using the new REST connector (see below) to your local weather service and send an automated application for vacation if tomorrow s weather looks really good. Or just automate your entire business. The choice is yours. Here is how it s done: Updated Studio Launcher, for launching of different Studio versions The new Studio Launcher makes it easy to connect to many different Flow servers, even though the installations are of different versions of Flow. As a Designer or Administrator, you don t even have to know which version you are connecting to. The Studio Launcher takes care of all this, including downloading new versions and updates of the Flow Studio. Note! The Flow Studio Launcher can be used with Flow version 6.4 or later. 7

8 User exits with condition Available If Sometimes all exits from a user step should not be enabled, as an exit can be dependent on data from in a previous step, for example an order type and invoice status. In order to always only show relevant options to the User, we have introduced the Available If condition on a User Exit. If this is left blank, the user exit will always be available. If it has a condition, expressed with a FlowScript statement, this statement will be evaluated when the User Step is presented. If the condition is true then the option is shown, otherwise the option will be hidden to the user. FlowScript Type support It is now possible to define Types in FlowScript programs where a type defines the structure of a record or table variable. The Type will greatly simplify the work of creating new variables in a workflow and keeping the variables uniform. A Type can be defined in different ways. One way is to define a Type manually similar to defining records with FlowScript, and then use this Type to create Flow variables. Another way is to use the type of an existing table or record to define a new variable directly from the existing variable. 8

9 Keyboard handling in the Windows 10 client (incl. scanning support) Keyboard handling in the Windows 10 Client in now equal to the one we already have in the Web Client. This means that you now basically can use the Enter key to move through an entire workflow. As a consequence the Windows 10 Client can now be used together with an external scanner (like a Bluetooth scanner). Support for Azure AD authentication For customers running Flow on Azure or using Azure AD as their main user directory, the Azure authentication possibility is a must. With this version of Flow it is possible to both synchronize users from an Azure AD and login using Azure AD authentication. Connector: Html To Pdf With the new Html To Pdf Connector, we now have the possibility to create PDF files directly in a workflow. The PDF file is returned as a variable to the workflow, meaning that you can do virtually anything with the PDF when it has been created. The PDF is based on a HTML definition in which you can use Flow variables, including images and signatures. Updates in the Flow Connector The Flow Connector has also got an update, it is now containing two new sections: - Monitoring: Getting information from monitored Applications and its Tasks and performing the Kill and Reassign operations for a task. - Workflows: Getting information about Scheduled Workflows and their statuses. Be sure to hit the Refresh button to get the new Operations! 9

10 Generic REST Connector, fully integrated with the Studio With the new generic REST Connector, we take a major step towards connecting to anything. We now at least can very easily connect to any REST based web service. With the new REST Connector you can work entirely from the Flow Studio, creating specific connectors to REST based APIs. Besides being integrated to the Studio, the REST Connector has also got a major upgrade. For example, if the REST API that you want to connect to has a Swagger definition, then you can create a new connector with just a few clicks! There is also support for OAUTH2, export and import of definitions among others. This example shows a cool implementation of a connector to Microsoft s Computer Vision API, which can analyse an image and return information about the image. Well Microsoft Maybe you should have noticed that this is not just any car. It s a Porsche! A GT3. RS. Happy flowing! 10