Assure 9.0 Release Notes

Assure 9.0 enhancements include:

 

Rules Versioning

A version history of Control Entities, Data Quality Applications, Result Templates, Result Actions, Layouts, Translations, and Calendars is provided for rules developers, rules viewers and internal auditors. From the version history, a variety of actions can be taken to view, compare, revert, or create new rules from the prior versions. These capabilities improve the productivity of the rules developers by allowing them to quickly understand how an object has been changed over time, and recover from changes that have undesired effects. These capabilities also improve the ability of an internal auditor to assess the changes over time to any rule. The detailed capabilities of rules versioning are listed below.

• Provides a version history list for an object, showing the time the version was created, who created it, and any audit comment that was entered with the save or import that created the version.
• An object can be reverted to the content of a prior version. This allows rules developers to experiment with changes, and undo those changes that they don’t wish to keep.
• A new object can be created from a version. For example, a rules developer might discover that after changing a layout, they need to have both the old and new layout definitions for different files. They can create a new layout that is like the older version of the layout that they modified.
• A prior version of an object can be exported, and then imported into the same or a different environment. For control entity or application version exports, the system also exports the corresponding prior versions of referenced rules, such as layouts or translations.
• The definition report of a version of an object can be viewed, printed, or saved as a PDF.
• The definition report of an object, either current or versioned, can be generated as text for comparison outside of the product. This allows a rules developer or auditor to understand at a detailed level how two versions are different. It also allows the user to understand how the rules in different environments, such as development and test, are different.
• An internal auditor can view the full auditable event corresponding to a version of an object.
• Exports of control entities or applications now record an auditable event. If audit commentary is enabled, the user performing an export is prompted for audit comment entry. This can help improve traceability for rules promotions.
• Controls exports and imports can be “tagged” in audit history for additional rules promotion traceability. When the user performing the export indicates a tag is to be made, audit commentary is gathered and included in both the audit entry and the export zip file. At import, the same tag will be created in the importing system.
• An internal auditor can filter audit history to just those events that are tagged, improving their ability to focus on major events.
• An internal auditor can view the version history of any object within an event, filtered to the version corresponding to the event. For example, the internal auditor can view the version history of a control entity that was included in an import, starting with the version corresponding to that event and then expanding their inspection to versions before or after that.

Export Control Data to CSV

A user, who is viewing the control data of a control entity, after having run a query and opened a result set view, can export the full control data rows of the result set to a CSV file if the result set contains no more than 1 million rows. This can aid ad-hoc analysis and reporting on the results of controls.

 

Capture Source Extract Tab

The extract tab of a capture source has been redesigned to speed up the loading of complex extraction logic, and improve the editing of detailed extraction logic. Previously, capture sources with complex extraction logic could take a long time to load the Extract tab before the rules developer could edit the extraction logic, and for very complex sources, the browser needed to be in “compatibility view” in order for the loading of the tab to complete at all.

The addition or modification of any detailed extraction rule is also redesigned so that all aspects of the detailed extraction rule are edited in the lower panel, and only one “Apply” is performed to validate and update the overall extraction logic. This improves the rules developers’ productivity by always ensuring the entire expression for a detailed extract rule is valid and reducing the number of times the top extract panel is modified per editing session.

 

Infogix Sagacity Case Management Integration

Infogix Sagacity now provides exception and case management capabilities. Infogix Assure can integrate with this new capability in Infogix Sagacity and send selected “exception” control data instances to Infogix Sagacity to be worked as cases.

 

Generate Reports on Client

The generateReports utility is now available in the Infogix Assure client and managed client installations. Previously, it was only available as a server utility. In addition, the generateReports utility can now transfer and store the generated reports on the client. These capabilities provide additional generated report storage flexibility, especially for Infogix Cloud hosted environments.

 

Managed Client for IBM® z/OS®

The managed client that was introduced in release 8.5 is now available for the IBM® z/OS® mainframe environment as well. This provides additional deployment flexibility, especially for customers using Infogix Cloud hosting services.

 

User Report Instance Reporting Options

Two new options, “With Return Code” and “With Values” are introduced to specify which instances to include on the user report. The “With Return Code” option can be used to indicate those instances for which validation processing took an action to set a non-zero return code should be included on the report. The “With Values” option can be used to indicate that those instances for which validation processing applied a User Report Validation Field action.

Previously, the only option for partial instance selection was “With Result” which required processing to generate a result based upon a result template.

These new options provide more efficient partial instance selection capabilities for user reports.

 

Execute Control Point Action Client Flexibility

"In prior releases, control point executions that were initiated by the client could receive execute control point actions from the rules that were run, and those subsequent actions were also run by the client. However, those additional execute control point actions always performed “-local” capture processing, and occur one at a time.

Now the rules developer can return execute control point actions to the client that do not perform local capture. Instead, the triggered actions will be initiated by the client such that the server performs all of the work. This new capability gives the rules developer flexibility in managing how much impact a set of controls will have on the running server and the actions being taken by other unrelated controls."

 

Merge Replace First Option

A new merge option for control fields in capturing control points called “Replace First” is available. This option retains a previously captured control field value even though a new value might be extracted in the current execution. In prior releases, the rules developer needed to write complicated validation logic and control field change actions to achieve the same effect.

 

Reconciliation Task Report Data Size

In addition to standard paper sizes like legal and tabloid, a paper size of Data that provides 1591 characters has been included to define the layout of the reconciliation task report. This capability makes it easier to complete the definition of very large reconciliation tasks when printing is not a primary concern. For example, when the report data is only being transferred to Infogix Perceive or Infogix Sagacity, or when the report is only viewed online and generated to CSV, then this option may be useful.

 

Runtime Fields Arrangement

The runtime fields defined for a control point can be re-arranged in the list according to the rules developers’ preference. Previously, new runtime fields were always added at the end of the list. Organizing runtime fields can reduce errors in control point manual test execution and control point action rule building.

 

Control Data Instance and History Pages Show Control Point

The control point name is displayed on the Current and History tab of a control data instance popup, showing the last control point that modified the instance. Previously, this information was only shown in the result set list. This additional information improves documentation for research activities involving control data.

 

Translation Enhancements

Unconditional Translation

Translations that use the “Dynamic Query in Memory” algorithm can now specify “Always” as a translation condition. This provides the rules developer with a more efficient and easier to write dynamic translations.

Comparison Operators

The greater than or equal to (>=) and less than or equal to (<=) operators are added to the list of operators for more efficient and natural translations. This capability, in conjunction with Date datatypes, makes for much more natural time-based translations. For example, you might have a Date parameter param_transaction_date and you can now have transaction criteria of param_transaction_date >= col_effective_date and param_transaction_date <= col_termination_date.

Date Datatype

Input and output parameters for translations can now be defined as Date values. Additionally, translation data columns can also be Date values. These values are treated as SQL Timestamp values within translation processing. Previously, these values had to be converted text for use in translation. This capability makes translation lookups where the data to be returned is time-bound much more natural.

 

New Software Supported

• Oracle® Directory Server 11.1.1.7.0 is supported.
• Microsoft® SQL Server® 2014 is supported.

 

WildFly 10.1.0 Support

Infogix products now support WildFly 10.1.0 Application Server, formerly known as JBoss Application Server. WildFly is an open source application server licensed under the LGPL 2.1 License.

The following are some of the differences between WildFly 10.1.0 and JBoss 6.1.0:

• WildFly 10.1.0 uses a port offset value to configure a set of ports like the HTTP and HTTPS ports. This is a different numbering system from previous versions of JBoss deployments as shown in the table below.
  
  

  WildFly PORT_OFFSET	HTTP Port	HTTPS Port
  0	8080	8443
  100	8180	8543
  200	8280	8643
  300	8380	8743
  400	8480	8843
  500	8580	8943

  
  For more information, see the “Application Server Properties” chapter in the Infogix Properties Guide.
• Users who upgrade from a release that used an earlier JBoss version must use the new port numbers as shown in the table above.
• WildFly has a separate security realm for the administrator that can login into the console. This is different from JBoss 6.1.0 where the administrator was the SECURITY_USER.
• WildFly requires Java 8 and will not work with Java 7.
• WildFly requires that the server is running during deployment.

 

Java 8 Support

Infogix products now support Java 8.

Both Java 8 and Java 7 are supported for IBM® WebSphere® 8.5.5.x Application Server.

 

New Browser Support

Infogix products now support the following two new browsers in addition to Internet Explorer® 11.

• Google Chrome™
• Microsoft Edge™

 

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) Support

IPv4 and IPv6 support is now available for Infogix product deployments. Users can specify IP addresses in IPv6 format for both WildFly and WebSphere application servers.

WildFly installations are configured to use IPv4 by default. To use IPv6, remove the JVM argument “-Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true” for the WILDFLY_JAVA_OPTIONS property in the appserver.properties file.

WebSphere Application Server supports IPv6, IPv4, and an IPv4/IPv6 combination called mixed mode. The type of TCP/IP stack is controlled by the “java.net.preferIPv4Stack” and “java.net.preferIPv6Addresses” Java Virtual Machine arguments. To create a WebSphere environment using IPv6 requires that “java.net.preferIPv6Addresses” is set to true for the deployment manager, node manager, and server.

 

Enhancements to Embedded Directory Deployments

Infogix supports product deployments using Embedded Directory, where the management of users accessing the products is managed within the product.

Several security, audit and reporting enhancements have been added to Embedded Directory deployments in this release.

Show “Superuser” Attribute

Directory Administrators and Superusers can now visually view the users that have Superuser privileges. This capability enables the administrators to easily identify all Superusers for compliance purposes.

Generate Object Permissions Report

Security Administrators and Superusers can now generate a report that contains information about the users assigned permission sets. You can generate this report from the security profiles page for a complete report of all Security Profiles, or for an individual permission set from the Permissions page.

 

Infogix Administrative Console Improvements

The administrative console enables users to gather and provide information to Infogix Customer Support for use in troubleshooting run-time problems.

Test Email Connectivity

From the Infogix Administrative Console, select “Test Email” link to verify email connectivity.

The top panel displays the email configuration properties specified in the installation properties file for your reference.

In the bottom panel, specify the values for the required fields and click Send to verify that the recipient received the test email.

Delete Thread Dump and Heap Dump Files

In prior releases, users had to rely on an external third party vendor, or a server administrator to delete thread dumps and heap dumps that may have been generated by the application servers. Infogix product owners would have had to open up tickets with their administrators to remove these generated files that often consume significant amount of disk space.

A new Delete button has been added to the Heap Dumps and Thread Dumps page in the Infogix administrative console. Infogix Superusers can delete these dump files to reclaim disk space.

 

Configure Session Timeout Details

Users can define their own site-specific values to configure session timeout parameters. Two new properties, SESSION_TIMEOUT and SESSION_TIMEOUT_WARNING, have been added to the appserver. properties file to configure session timeout duration.