10/26/2022

v12.0 includes new Form fields, ETL tasks, Administrative improvements and more. The previous release was v11.4, found here.

Version Patches

• v12.0a (10/26/2022)
• v12.0b (11/09/2022)

New Features

• Form Improvements:
  • Send Email: Automatically send a customizable email when submitting (or updating) a Form. Recipients can be internal or external to TruOI. The message body can be HTML customized with macros (including any field value). And optionally, Email attachments can be sent during the original submission of a form entry or also during the update of an existing form entry.

• • New Automatic Hidden PK (Primary Key) Field: New forms (via "Create New" method) will no longer require a PK field. Instead, a new hidden column (autopk$) will be used behind the scenes and won't even appear as a hidden field within the form. This improvement means your save process will no longer be disrupted with a notification of the PK requirement, nor will the workflow offer to make one.
    • Existing forms, where a PK field was manually defined, will continue to operate as-is and won't require any changes.
  • Field Group Border: By using a new border, fields can be visually grouped together to help understand which fields are related.
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  • New Fields:
    • File Upload & Take Photo: These new field types allow file attachments to be part of the Form record.
      • Additionally:
        • Files uploaded through a Form entry can be individually downloaded or collectively downloaded as a ZIP file.
        • Taking a photo is primarily for mobile users, but works from a PC too!
        • The Form Query feature has been upgraded to include special criteria for searching all files uploaded through a single form. Fields include: Filename, File Extension, File Size, and File Upload Date.

• • • Drawn Signature: Not for collecting legally binding signatures, this field works great when paired with "confirmation" workflows about submitting data records into the application.

• • • Empty Field Group: Field Groups have already existed based on ideas for what fields might be useful to collect information. An empty field group is helpful to get started with a fresh idea of fields to group together.
• In-Line Help for Chart Designer: The features of the Chart Designer have been documented  within the extensive Builder Manual. This new feature offers a quick blurb to help understand each property of the Chart Designer to help guide your chart building experience!

• Impersonate User: Building charts and dashboards using user-filtered data will be improved by allowing an admin to have special privilege to temporarily impersonate a specific user during the building process. This works in collaboration with Filter-on-User.

• Multi-Page Navigation: Improve your navigation options with the option to jump to any page. This is necessary for having a website-like experience (navigate anywhere) versus a report-like experience (next page & previous page).
• Cache: The final phase to eliminate the need to clear the browser cache will finally arrive. This means, any software improvements/upgrades that occur will not require clearing the browser cache by every client device.

Administrative

• Administrative SMTP Settings: New templates and email tests have been added throughout the Administrative application. Now, when you set up a server-side email template, you can test the function of the SMTP configuration and the appearance of the template without actually triggering the event that would normally send an automated email!
• Admin Settings: The appearance and interactions for most of the System Settings have been updated. Expect more updates like this in the future!

• Storage Tiers: For hosted TruOI solutions, the disk consumption for all stored data will be clearly presented through the administrative interface. This will help identify what is consuming disk space and will help understand why it was necessary to move into a larger storage tier.

Data Hub

• New Task > Parse JSON: This task can be used to extract discrete values from a String of JSON into multiple rows and columns. This is accomplished through the application of JSONPath expressions.

Into This (50 rows of data)

• New Task > Write to File: The Write Data to Files task writes ETL data to one or more files of a specified format. Choose from the file options: CSV, SKV, XLSX, JSON (as array or object). And publishing locations include options: local path on server, on-demand download, or upload to FTP!
  • An FTP engine has been implemented into this task for automating the transfer of ETL data into a file and onto a different server of your authority.

• Queue Job Prioritization: This improvement will run a series of "Queue Job" tasks in the order in which can be determined by the flow lines. The theory behind this calculation is not as simple as described; Therefore, if faced with a complex series of ETL Jobs which need to utilize multiple "Queue Job" tasks in the same flow, contact Support to describe the rules, variations and omissions.
  • Note: Prior to this change, the run order was determined by the server - resulting in a downstream "Queue Job" task to trigger before an upstream "Queue Job" task.
• ETL Improvements: It is now possible to grab a task flow line and drop it onto a blank area of the canvas. In doing so, the Transformation dialog will automatically appear.
• Looser Rules: Some rules have been loosened up to allow "Configuration Complete" jobs even when all endpoints of the ETL have not yet been configured or found to be technically "useful". These looser rules improve the development stage of an ETL job and allow a job to be broken into chucks and then later joined together.
• Auto-Repair Flow Lines: When deleting most tasks, the flow lines will automatically repair when the incoming and outgoing data columns can be fully repaired and mapped.

  The new rule to determine if this will take place will be:

  1. The task has exactly one input connection.

  2. The task has one or more output connections.

Feature Retirement:

• Java: In a continuous effort to improve product security and stability, this release of v12.0a has retired the support of Java 8. The minimum requirement will be Java 11. Oracle has stopped support of JDK8 and Amazon Corretto has taken over the OpenJDK project which does support JDK8 but without promise on the length of support.
  • Download option: https://adoptium.net/temurin/releases/?version=11 
• Microsoft Driver: At the time of this release, the Microsoft jTDS driver has not been updated since 2013 (ref link). While not officially "retired", there has been a lack of updates and rising issues as a result of continuing the use of this legacy driver. Therefore the preferred driver option for connecting to a Microsoft SQL Server Data Source has become the Microsoft Driver JDBC driver (https://github.com/microsoft/mssql-jdbc/releases).
  • Beginning with this product release, new MSSQL Data Source connections will default to the newer MSSQL Driver.
  • Existing Data Sources, using Microsoft jTDS, may benefit from the driver upgrade. At this time, that process will require a service ticket through OSKAR where a Support technician can assist with the switchover process.
• URL Based Single-Sign-On: In a continuous effort to improve product security, this release has retired the ability to use URL-based Single Sign-on. This approach to authentication goes against any modern security policy and greatly increases the risk for unauthorized access. As a replacement option, refer to our other authentication options within the Administrator Manual (like OAUTH2, SAML, etc.) or ask our Support team for help determining how to best hand an effective security measures to handle authentication.

Upgrading

Hosted

If you have a hosted subscription with iDashboards, your instance will be updated in coordination with your Client Success Manager.

On-Premise

To upgrade use the Product Download Site to download the product media (for new clients, you will download the Production Installer.) If you have used the Product Download Site in the past, you will use the same credentials. If you have not, please contact your Client Success Manager and we can help you obtain your credentials. The credentials are often found in your license update emails, beneath the licensing information, you will see download URL, username, and password.

resolved >= 2022-05-21 AND resolved <= 2022-10-26 AND statusCategory = 3 AND "Apply changes to:[Checkboxes]" = Master AND "Apply changes to:[Checkboxes]" != Branch ORDER BY updated DESC