WhatsNew178

Cycle Management

Platform User Groups in Cycles

Cycle Groups can now contain Platform User Groups, which in turn means that Active Directory groups, synchronized to the Platform, can now be used in Cycles.

When a Review, Approve, Endorsement or Acknowledge Cycle starts, the cycles participants are now locked in. Future changes tied to planning for a scheduled cycle, changes made to Cycle Groups, or changes driven by a directory synchronization don't automatically impact the running cycle. Cycle Managers can now pull the changes to a Cycle Group into an In-Progress cycle, or for users with the Manage Repository Configuration permission, updates can be pushed to multiple in-progress cycles. For details, see the In-Progress Cycle Group Participants topic.

Repository level Cycle Group configuration has been significantly augmented. User group assignments no longer contains users who aren't assigned to any cycles or objects. In addition to the Groups themselves, and User assignments, you can now see cycle Group assignments, and with permission, push Group changes to In-Progress cycles. Furthermore, to assist with Cycle group maintenance, Cycle groups now show deleted users that are assigned to cycle configurations on objects, as well as assignments to cycle groups.

Cycles Overview

Cycle Managers can now see all of their running cycles in the new Cycles page. Scheduled Cycles now support comments.

Improved Cycle icons include representation of Pending Effective Date and, for Acknowledgement Cycles, Overdue.

Bump Version Number on Approval

Cycle Managers can configure an Approval Cycle to increment the version number on approval. This is particularly useful if you don't know whether a version will get approved, and don't want to 'burn' a major version number.

Other Cycle Enhancements

New 'Attention Needed' emails to support sending a cycle participant one email if they are included in multiple cycles at the same time, either by way of a multi-object cycle start, or by way of a cycle group participation change.

New Repository Role permission to allow bulk approval of items from the to-do list. When enabled, the participant can select multiple items in their to-do list and click Vote. The same vote, and comment are applied to all selected items.

Review, Approve and Endorsement cycles now use a paginated report when the cycle contains more than 25 users.

The comment policy for Review, Approve, and Endorse have been separated out for more comment requirement configurability. This release also includes more policy options for canceled, paused and resumed acknowledgement cycles. Additionally, Cycle Report is now sortable by column.

Acknowledgement Cycles

Acknowledgement Cycles are a new fourth Cycle. Acknowledgement cycles are used to make sure that users have seen and acknowledged a repository item or process. No opinion is solicited, but employees have to acknowledge a nominated item to complete their involvement. To understand how Acknowledgement cycles fit with Review, Approve and Endorsement cycles, see the Managing Approve, Review, Endorse And Acknowledge Cycles topic.

Acknowledgement Cycles utilize live cycles groups. Unlike Review, Approve and Endorsement cycles, participants are added or removed when Cycle Groups are updated, or when User Groups are manually updated, or updated by a directory synchronization.

Acknowledgement Cycles allow a Cycle Manager to specify how many days a participant has to act, and that information is reflected in emails, the action bar and in the to-do lists. As users can be added at any time, a users 'due date' is driven by when they were added to an Acknowledgement Cycle.

Unlike Review, Approve and Endorsement cycles, Acknowledgement cycles don't complete. They continue to run, even after all the current cycle members have acknowledged, as new participants may join at a later date. However, if a cycle is running on an approved version, and the current approved version changes, the cycle manager gets to choose how the version change is handled.

There's a new permission to manage acknowledgement cycles, but unlike other cycles, if you can view an object, you can acknowledge it. Additionally, unlike Endorsement cycles, Acknowledgement cycles can be run on an upcoming approved version before it is rolled out.

As Acknowledgement cycles might be run on an entire organization, cycle participation has a graphical overview with information on acknowledged, pending, overdue, blocked and deleted participants.

Furthermore, Acknowledgement cycles have a paginated cycle participant reporting with search, sort and filtering.

Approved Versions

Process documentation is continually evolving, and the updated version bar makes it clear whether a user is looking at the current approved version, previously approved versions and historical versions. The version bar also makes it clear whether the current view is effective, will be effective or is no longer effective. When a diagram has both an approved version, and an upcoming approved version, the user can easily toggle between them.

With these version-control enhancements, the distinctions between object versions are made clearer in the information panel of the Version Bar which now shows Effective Date.

To ensure that Viewers can focus on only the most accurate and current content, the Describes panel shows the described object as it was at check in time, except PRC data, which is always live. The summary, purpose and instructions, custom data, and the relationships are all 'per check-in' time. For those with permissions to see unapproved changes, the new Changes toggle appears when enterprise objects described by the diagram have been modified after check in. If there are no changes, the Changes toggle will not appear

This different information is also available in Compare to make distinctions between versions more clear. Also, custom properties of described objects now appear in the Describes preview panel so more information is available to Viewers at-a-glance.

Proposed Objects

In addition to a proposed objects summary and RACI relationships, Designers are now able to propose a new objects purpose, instructions and the full set of relationships for an Architect to accept. Also, Proposed Objects won't throw away location if it is valid for a new type.

Web Diagramming Enhancements

Templates

Diagrams provide a tremendous amount of information in an efficient visual format. Capturing the complexity of an enterprise often means creating hundreds or even thousands of diagrams. To streamline this work, all approved diagrams within a designated template folder are available as templates from the diagram creation dialog.

In the Advanced settings in Repository Configuration, you can select a template folder. Depending on permissions, and with some configuration, different users can see different sets of templates.

Shape Numbering

Web diagrams now support shape numbering. Numbering can be added automatically to existing diagrams, and configured on a shape-by-shape basis. Additionally, shape numbering automatically applies hierarchy for embedded and collapsed sub-processes.

Rich Text

Shape Notes now support inline images, as does the Narrative Rich Text section. Additionally users can now resize an inserted image, and we now support pasting clipboard images directly into Header/Footers, Shape Notes and the Narrative Rich Text section.

Shape text, Shape Notes, Header/Footers and Narrative Rich Text sections now support Strike-through/Superscript/Subscript.

Other Web Diagram Enhancements

Web diagrams include a number of new enhancements. They now support simple line crossovers, and we've enhanced the layout behavior when resizing/moving lanes and pools with manually routed lines.

The diagram zoom controls have been enhanced, and now support 100% and Fit to Content. Additionally, pool, lane and phase headers can now be selected when scrolled out of view.

The Links page has been refined and you can now find shapes with links using Diagram find.

This release also adds the ability to include images directly into a diagram, using the new 'Insert Image From File' feature.

Lastly, Describes Hints are now on-demand, and now have an improved lookup heuristic resulting in better matches in large repositories.

Shape Libraries

Shape Libraries can now be created from existing Web Diagrams. A single new library can be built from a diagram that might contain shapes from multiple existing libraries, or images inserted from file.

Shape Libraries now support Default Fill colors, and twin text area shapes now support independent fill colors. We've also added support for Line styling defaults.

Drag-and-Drop

Working with external files is now even easier than before. This release provides the ability to drag-and-drop multiple files and upload multiple external files at once. There are also new drop boxes in the Shape Library and the web diagram upload.

Drag-and-drop capabilities are also improved for in-repository operations. Users can now drag-and-drop the creation of shape links to repository objects in Web diagrams.

Users can also add custom property relationships using drag and drop in Web diagrams and the Item Properties page.

Drag-and-drop is also now supported from the Platforms breadcrumb, making it easier to link to recently viewed objects. Administrators are also now able to set the default breadcrumb behavior for new users (Ancestors or Recent History).

Summary, Purpose and Instructions

Building on the ability to capture an object's summary, the 'what', and an object's purpose, the 'why', you can how capture an object's 'how' - by way of the new instructions property, available on all objects. This release additionally brings formatting capabilities to Summary, Purpose and Instructions. This allows authors to enhance the end users experience and provide a one-stop-shop for information, by allowing content including rich text, images, links and term references. The new Instructions field has REST API and is included in the Languages import and export.

Images and Overlays

Inline images now support overlays, allowing authors to include screenshots, or detailed images without making them large enough to see in-place. Additionally, images are now available in more places, including Summary, Purpose and Instructions and in descriptive diagram text.

We've also improved the authoring experience. Users can now enjoy a larger editing space when working on shape notes, translating content in the languages grid, or while creating content for newly proposed objects. Furthermore, users can now view the content in an overlay as well.

Rich Text Custom Property

This release also adds a new Custom Property Type, Rich Text which, like diagram rich text, can contain formatted text, images, links and term reference links.

The Rich Text Custom Property can be configured for use with both Web Diagram elements or for Repository objects.

Narrative Enhancements

Sections in the Narrative can now be configured using a new drag and drop interface. In addition to customizing a sections title, you can now configure the information displayed. The Described Object and Shape List sections now support the inclusion of Custom Properties and Relationships. Additionally, where used, the Narrative includes rich text representations of Summary, Purpose and Instruction information, as well as for the new Rich Text Custom Properties.

The Described Object section has a new option to favor Pools which describe an object over the parent diagrams describe relationship.

Easily navigate between recent places in the Model area with the extended Breadcrumb that now supports 20 items, rather than 5. The Breadcrumb also shows the full names of recent items, instead of just the icon, making it much easier to keep track of recent activities and navigate more freely. Now users can also drag-and-drop from the 'More' dropdown for convenient linking and relationship creation.

Reporting

Adding to the already powerful reporting capabilities, report authors can now identify and report on shape links to URLs (linkedUrl), and on Documented By relationships to URLs (isDocumentedByUrl). Exposing this data additionally makes it easier for users to evaluate how external websites are referenced and consider migrating to reusable Web Address objects. And for easier navigation and inspection, URL links in reports are now clickable and show file type icons for "is Documented by URLs" in both the Describes Preview and Relationships page.

We also offer the ability to report on Checked Out Date to bring the lifecycle of your objects into clearer focus.

Reports are further enhanced by richer external file type reporting. References to external files now show the registered file type icons.

Another minor enhancement in this release is that links representing shortcut objects now additionally expose options tied to the target object as well.

Automation

Improved user interface and autosave make Automation Properties more convenient than ever. When navigating to other shapes or tags, your progress will be saved for continued editing.

Platform Enhancements

External files now support generic icons for common file formats.

Multilingual support has been expanded with support for more languages, and additional country flags have been added.

Platform emails now reflect the owning repository theme

This release includes improved support for Shortcuts, including:

Object List Gadget now supports inclusion of Shortcuts
Reports now show target object icon for shortcuts
Reports now support .shortcuts and .shortcutTo filter and property
REST API for Create/Disband Shortcuts

We have added improved logging capabilities around scheduled cycle and notification jobs, to help troubleshoot issues with cycles running at unexpected times or failing to start at all.

Administration

Improved logging capabilities around scheduled cycle and notification jobs were included to help troubleshoot issues with cycles running at unexpected times or failing to start at all.

The Administrative Server Role 'Can Customize' can now configure 'Early Access' features under Administration > Server Settings.

Performance

This release includes a number of performance refinements including IQL reporting with the Approved property, copying and moving objects, deleting Tree objects, and even our text search. Along with our Custom Property improvements in this release, we improved the performance of diagrams containing many custom properties.

Working with larger repositories is faster than ever with improvements to search, interactions with the repository tree and tree expansion, and background performance after making changes in User Management.

There are also a number of refinements which target cycle performance, especially in relation to cycles with a large number of participants. In addition to the paginated report for cycles with more than 25 users (Administrator configurable), we have also improved in-progress cycle permission reporting for cycles containing more than 250 users (Administrator configurable).

Furthermore, we've improved the performance of both making Administrator Role changes and of User Management Quick searches by limiting the number of users returned to 250 users (Administrator configurable).

And finally there is a noteworthy performance improvement to the time taken to check out and/or view IGX documents in the Desktop client which include a large number of described objects, and/or described objects with a large number of relationships, Even better, this improvement does not require an updated version of the Desktop client.