Assure 7.2 Release Notes

Assure 7.2 enhancements include:

 

Generate CSV Report Delimiter Option

By default, reports generated in csv format use commas to separate fields. To facilitate localization, users can now specify a different field separator, such as a semicolon. In European locales, a semicolon is the accepted field separator for Microsoft Excel files, because commas are used for decimal points.

Move Layout Fields

Users can cut or copy and paste layout fields from one location to another within an Infogix Assure layout. Fields can be easily re-sequenced, or promoted or demoted within groups and sublayouts.

Recon Output Mapping Express

A new output mapping express tool enables controls developers to quickly map fields for unmatched data from a reconciliation control point task output to other control entities or to Infogix ER reconciliations.

Working Day in Year Function

A new function computes a “working day in year” value. The function accepts a date as input and returns the corresponding working day in the year of that date. You can also use this function to determine if an input date is a working day. This is useful if you want to perform different processing depending on whether or not the date is a work day. The system calculates the working day by referencing a user-defined duration calendar that defines working days and excludes non-working days, such as local holidays.

New Audit History Filters

You can now filter audit history in the user interface based on change control ID or comments entered by users. Extracts and reports generated from the user interface also reflect the new filter criteria.

Control Point Execution Summary Improvements

For each control point execution, the system now generates an informational result indicating the current and last execution time of the control point, number of instances processed, return code, and counts of informational, warning, error, and fatal results produced.

Capture Summary Report Improvements

The Capture Summary result now includes the current and last load times calculated for the capture source.

User Report Labels for Totals/Subtotals

Users can now specify custom row labels for key break columns (totals and subtotals) on the User Report. For example, a User Report for a retailer might have a grand total line, as well as multiple lines labeled as department totals and store totals.

Create Time Criteria for Control Data Queries

Users can now filter control data in the internal Infogix Assure database based on instance creation date and time or a creation date/time range.

Delimited Layout Field Quotation Parsing

A new field quotation option is available for delimited layouts to control how the system interprets double quote ("") characters in delimited input files. If field quotation is enabled, when the system detects a double quote, any field or record delimiters are ignored until the system detects a second double quote. When the option is disabled, no special processing is applied to quote characters. In prior releases, field quotation was always “enabled,” because there was no option to disable it. To preserve these existing settings, delimited layouts migrated from prior releases will have field quotation enabled by default.

User Defined Format for Date Control Fields

Controls developers now can specify custom formats for presentation of date control fields. In prior versions, date format options were limited to pre-defined choices, such as ISO 8601 or short date.

Result Template Formatting

As part of result template definitions, you can now specify formatting for numeric, date, and currency fields displayed in results of those types. This improves the readability of the results and makes it easier to distinguish dates and currency amounts from counts or tallies.

“Sticky” Display Settings for Control Data Views

When a user browses control data, the system now retains the display settings that determine the sorting sequence of query results and which fields to display for each control entity. This enables the user to see the same view any time they log in. To restore the default display settings, the user simply clicks the Reset button.

Control Point List Sequence

On the Manage Controls page in the user interface, users can now re-sequence the list of control points within a control entity, as needed. This enables users to arrange the control points in a meaningful sequence, such as in execution sequence or by frequency of use.

RSS Feed to Nexix

Users can now view their Infogix Assure inbox alerts in Infogix Nexix through an RSS feed. The inbox alerts include links to detailed results in Infogix Assure. This provides crucial communication across Infogix products and allows for visibility into controls via the Infogix Nexix dashboard.

Working Day in Month Scheduling

The internal scheduler can now run control points on the same working day of each month. You can define a calendar of working days, or accept the system default, which is Monday through Friday. In either case, you can readily exclude holidays and other non-working days by defining an exclusions calendar that fits your business needs.

Disabling Control Points

You can now disable obsolete control points, instead of deleting them. You cannot edit or execute disabled control points, but any existing results and reports produced by the control point are still accessible. In prior releases, the only option was to delete obsolete control points. However, deleting a control point also deletes its results and reports from the system. This also occurs in the target system if you import a control entity after deleting one or more of its control points.

JNDI Prefix Default for Database Layouts

Infogix Assure now adds the appropriate prefix to database JNDI data source names in database layout definitions, if the prefix is not already specified. The system determines the appropriate prefix based on the application server where Infogix Assure is deployed. For JBoss installations, this defaults to a “java:” prefix; for other application servers, no prefix is inserted. This eliminates the need to alter the data source name when transferring rules between different application servers. This feature can be disabled, if necessary.

Validation Rule Set Duplication

Within a control point, you can now copy and paste entire validation rule sets. This reduces time and errors if you need to set up multiple sets of rules with similar validation logic.

Additional Time-Based Options for Control Data Selection

In previous releases, cycle-based criteria were the only time-based criteria available for control data selection. Cycle-based criteria are useful for data updated on a daily cycle, but not for data that arrives on a continuous or sporadic basis.

Controls can now define selection criteria for control data based on the time the control data was created or last updated. Last and current control execution timestamps are also available for use by reconciliation tasks, scan rules, and history rules. In addition, last and current source processing timestamps are available for capture sources that select control data from the database.

Custom API Handler for Multipart Mime Messages

This release provides a JMS API handler to support customized data extraction from multipart mime format messages. The new multipart mime extractor can provide a single message part, or the entire message as a Java object in the form of API data. You can customize the API handler for individual control point targets, to retrieve the message part of your choice. Message parts are retrieved based on type (such as text/xml) or position (first part, last part, etc).

Layout to Layout References

Within an Infogix Assure layout, you can now build a sublayout that references a layout with multiple record types. Previously, sublayouts could only reference a single record type within a multiple record type layout.

Online API Error Queue Utility

Authorized controls developers can now manipulate the JMS API input queue from the user interface. Previously, this capability was only available through a command line utility. The developer can list the messages in the queue, clear the queue, re-queue messages, or create a file of message content that can be used for API capture source testing. To manipulate the queue, the controls developer must have the Administrator role and navigate to the APIErrorQueueUtility.do page.

Multiple Client Configurations

You can now install the Infogix Assure client once and configure access to multiple Infogix Assure server instances. Previously, it was necessary to install a separate Infogix Assure client to access each server instance.

API and Control Data Capture Source Test

You can now test extraction logic for API data sources and control data sources on the control point Capture tab. Previously, this feature was only available for file-oriented data sources.

JMS API Message Retry

When multiple API messages are processed simultaneously, some messages may fail if they attempt to create or modify the same control data instance. The system will now retry any failed messages up to five times, or a system configurable retry limit. Messages that fail after five attempts or the retry limit are placed on the error queue. The retry feature generally eliminates the need to serialize API requests, which in turn can improve performance and permits more cluster configuration options.

Control Entity Fields Express

A new express tool generates control fields for a new control entity based on the fields defined for an existing control entity. This functionality enables a user to easily and quickly generate control fields.

Control Point Copy

You can now copy control points from one control entity to another. This feature is useful when both control entities have very similar control fields. It also reduces time and errors when creating control points.

Communication Improvement with Infogix Insight

Infogix Assure no longer uses a direct database connection to communicate control point execution results to Infogix Insight. This simplifies deployment and management of Infogix Assure, particularly in environments that run control points in standalone mode.

 

Enhanced WebSphere Deployments

Many of the tasks to deploy on WebSphere have been automated. The following enhancements simplify deployment on a WebSphere application server:

• The validate-config script now validates the following settings, which reduces the chance of deployment errors:
  • WebSphere server settings
  • Node names
  • Whether Java 2 security is disabled. If Java 2 security is enabled, the system sends a message.
• When creating data sources, the system automatically configures the path for the JDBC drivers.
• The deployment process sets the value for the HTTP, SSL, and transaction timeouts.
• The deployment process configures the class loaders.
• The deployment process automatically sets the heap size.
• The deployment process automatically sets the JVM arguments.
• For Windows, UNIX, and Linux, the system configures the JVM settings for your Infogix application to use Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4).

Control Override Values

Previously, files in the CONFIG_OVERRIDE folder were not copied over during migration. As a result, customers who upgraded did not retain the customized properties in this folder.

Beginning with this release, you have the option to override the values on a file by file or property by property basis.

The migrate-config script brings in the values from your previous configuration and the deployment process overrides the properties with your customized values.

Clustering Enhancements

Several enhancements improve the process of setting up a clustered environment.

Duplicate Cluster Settings

For all application servers, the validate-config script checks the multicast port and multicast address to look for duplicates in other environments. This change helps to eliminate errors and to prevent unanticipated behavior that can occur if two or more products use the same multicast port and address.

Unique Log File Names

You are no longer required to set up a local configuration for a clustered environment. The host name is added as a prefix to the log file name to identify the log for each configuration.

For JBoss and WebSphere, the property that controls the JVM arguments for the server also controls the naming of the server log files to reflect the unique server name.

In JBoss, the property is JBOSS_APP_TARGETx.JBOSS_APP_JAVA_OPTIONS, and in WebSphere, the property is WEBSPHERE_APP_TARGET.JAVA_OPTIONS.x, where x represents the server.

Infogix Assure API Settings

For a WebSphere cluster, the deployment automatically sets the value for the following API settings: DIA.TOTAL_PROCESSORS, DIA.PARTITION_START, and DIA.PARTITION_END. Previously, a user had to specify the startup options.

Infogix Administrative Console

Infogix applications now have access to an administrative console. From within the console user interface, an administrator can collect diagnostic data without third-party intervention.

Customers can work with support personnel to generate the necessary data to diagnose run-time problems, and to send the data to support, as applicable.

You can use the console to perform the following tasks:

• Configure logging for a specific area of your Infogix application
• Enable the collection of data to show memory and CPU usage
• Generate heap dumps on demand and copy them to a specified location
• Generate thread dumps
• Create a diagnostic package that includes thread dumps, log files, configuration files, and system information
• View specific configuration or log files

Multiple Deployments of the Same Solution on a Single Server

You can now deploy multiple instances of an Infogix application under a single application server instance. This reduces the number of application server instances that an administrator must run and maintain. The instances can run simultaneously; the only constraint is the memory available on the application server. Patches must be applied separately to each instance of the application.