ER 9.3 Release Notes

ER 9.3 enhancements include:

 

 

Auto Notify Rules execution completion alert

This functionality allows an email to be sent to a configurable email address when all sub-rules have been executed for an Auto Notify rule.

To provide this functionality, two new configuration properties have been added to the ER.properties file:

#System From email address for process completion alerts
AUTONOTIFY_PROCESS_STATUS_ALERT_FROM=
 
#System To email address for process completion alerts
AUTONOTIFY_PROCESS_STATUS_ALERT_RECIPIENTS=

If the above properties are configured, the system sends email alerts for each Auto Notify Rule execution completed; the email subject and message include the definition ID of the rule.

Note that in a few cases, a completion notification will not be sent. Notifications will not be sent if:

1. The definition is empty or not executable (for example, if there is no source mapping, notification rules, or a data model defined for the rule).
2. The definition is disabled.
3. The Application or Email server fails before sending the alert.

In the event a sub-rule fails, the completion alert is sent with a notation of the failed rule.

 

Aging Offset enhancement

To accommodate the need to include weekends and holidays in item age calculations, an enhancement to the Aging Offset feature (introduced in Infogix ER 9.1) has been added to this release.

The Aging Offset UI and Rules remain the same; however, offset processing has changed. The process is:

1. The customer sets up an aging calendar to exclude weekends and holidays. In this case, the calendar is used only for applying the offset, not in item age calculations.
2. The customer configures a non-zero aging offset, which the application interprets as the number of business days to offset (or shift) the Recon Processing Date using the configured aging calendar. For example, a -2 offset shifts the calendar date two business days previous.
3. After shifting the Recon Processing Date, the application calculates the age without using a reference calendar (which results in no date exclusions). The calculation includes the end date, if configured.

In other words, the item aging formula with negative offset is:

• Recon Processing Date shifted by the offset configured
• Minus the Item Date
• Plus 1 (if Include End Date is enabled)

This method of aging calculation is now the default offset processing method. To revert processing to the absolute offset method previously used, a new property has been added to the reconciliation.properties file:

AGING_OFFSET_TODATE=false

The administrator must configure this parameter to “false” and redeploy the product to have the absolute offset method of calculation take effect.

Note that if an aging offset is not defined (in other words, the aging offset is zero), the above offset processing does not apply. The item age is then calculated as before using a reference calendar.

 

Special characters in Work Owner ID

For some customers, the default validation pattern for the Work Owner ID was too strict, as their user IDs contain special characters (such as a period, or @ symbol). For example, a customer may have user IDs like x.y@acme.com.

To use such IDs, the application administrator previously had to reconfigure the ID validation pattern to include the required special characters. With this enhancement, Infogix ER now includes many common special characters in the validation pattern. This makes it easier for an administrator to manage work owners if their business uses IDs containing special characters.

The current default user ID validation is [A-Za-z0-9-_ .@]*.

 

Text wrapping for pre-formatted emails

Previously, if a formatted email had very long lines of text, lines would often not wrap or scroll automatically. This enhancement ensures the lines in such emails wrap properly and do not overflow the screen, while preserving configured formatting.

 

Community link

This version includes a new Community link, available through the Web Based Administration Help menu.

This link takes you to the Infogix Support Community forums where you can ask a question, post a comment, find shared content in the discussions, or post and vote on product feature requests.

 

Updated About Us screen

Also included in this release is an updated About Us screen with a new look and feel. Though the screen looks different, the same crucial information is included: version and build numbers, build dates, deployment name, system and application patch levels, licensing and licensed modules, server host and ports, and the Infogix Support URL.

 

Productivity Enhancements

Mass Edit fields unchecked by default

In earlier releases, when a user opened Mass Edit on the Item Search screen, all fields were selected for editing by default, forcing the user to actively deselect all fields which they did not want to edit. If one of the fields were accidentally overlooked for de-selection, the result was an unintended overwrite of valid data.

In this release, the default behavior has been changed so that when a user opens the Mass Edit screen, none of the fields are selected. This allows the user to select only those fields which they wish to edit and reduces the chance of accidentally overwriting data.

This enhancement does not apply to Mass Edit on the Recon Entity Detail screen. The Mass Edit review and confirmation prompt is unchanged.

Item counts for New Match Set screen and QMatch

An enhancement in this release adds the total Item counts for the left-side Items and right-side Items on the New Match Set screen and QMatch.

On the New Match Set screen, totals are shown in the Total section, as shown in the following screen shot.

For QMatch, totals are included in the QMatch status bar display.

 

Display labels for Item counts are determined from the Reconciliation Definition. By default, the application uses the values from Item Rules > Side Assignment > Left-Hand Side and Right-Hand Side fields.

For example, if the Left-Hand Side field value is "Credit", the left side Item label is "Credit Items.” If multiple words are used for the Left-Hand Side or Right-Hand Side field values, only the first word is used. So, for example, if the Right-Hand Side field value is "Debit Amount", the label is "Debit Items.”

If desired, the display labels for the new left and right side Item totals can be overridden at the system level by setting the RECON_LHS_ITEMS_LABEL and RECON_RHS_ITEMS_LABEL properties in the reconciliation.properties file. This file is in components\Reconciliation\conf. Note if these parameter values are changed, the administrator must redeploy the application for changes to take effect.

To disable or revert the Item count feature, set the ENABLE_MATCHING_SCREEN_
ITEMCOUNT parameter to false in the reconciliation.properties file. As with the RECON_LHS_ITEMS_LABEL and RECON_RHS_ITEMS_LABEL parameters, the administrator must redeploy the application for the change to take effect.

Update Current Open Items via Infogix Assure

Currently, when an item is loaded into Infogix ER, there is no way for a system-controlled process to update field values for that item. Such updates are restricted to the item owner.

To allow the flexibility of a system-controlled process to update field values, this release includes an enhancement which allows Infogix Assure to update Item data.

With this release, Infogix Assure can now extract Item data from Infogix ER and then apply data updates as required, using the Item’s unique UUID value to make certain updates are being committed for the correct Item. Updated data is then sent back to Infogix ER.

In general, system-created fields cannot have their values changed and, by default, Item status cannot be changed; however, Open Items can be closed from Infogix Assure by setting the ERGATEWAY_ALLOW_ITEM_STATUS_CHANGE property to true. This property is found in the ER.properties file. The administrator must redeploy the application for this change to take effect.

Detailed audit logs are generated for Item updates from Infogix Assure by default. Logging can be turned off by setting AUDIT_SYSTEM_ITEM_UPDATES to false; this parameter is found in the reconciliation.properties file, located in components\Reconciliation\conf. As with other parameter changes, the administrator must redeploy the application for the change to be effective. Disabling logging (if it is not required) can save database space.

Execute an Item search on the Recon Entity Detail screen via the Enter key

In previous releases, Item Search functionality on the Recon Entity Detail screen required the user to physically click the Search button in the top menu bar.

Elsewhere in the product, however, searches are generally executed by pressing the Enter key alone. For example, the Search Recon Entity, Search Item, and Search Adjustments all work using the Enter key alone, and do not require the user to mouse-click the Search button on the screen.

The behavior of Search on the Recon Entity Detail screen has been changed in this release to also use Enter to execute search on that screen. This is now the default behavior in Infogix ER version 9.3 and later.

However, if the application administrator wishes to revert to the previous Search button behavior, they can set the ENABLE_RECONENTITY_DETAIL_SCREEN_DEFAULT_KEY property to false. This property is found in the reconciliation.properties file, located in  components\Reconciliation\conf. If the parameter value is changed, the administrator must redeploy the application for the change to take effect.

 

Technology Upgrades

Java WebStart Replacement

In this release, the application replaced the Java WebStart technology, which has been deprecated. Infogix now provides a Rich Client installer that embeds the AWS Corretto 8 JVM and IcedTea Web software to run the Rich Client.

Customers should install this software on all user desktops to replace Oracle JVM and Java WebStart. Install options include an interactive GUI, or via command-line using a supplied parameter file. For specific details and example of a parameter file, please see the Infogix Administrator’s Guide.

Library Upgrades

Several third-party libraries were upgraded in this release. Upgrades included:

• Apache POI from 3.17 to 4.1 (affects Microsoft Excel exports)
• XStream from 1.4.10 to 1.4.11.1 (affects Workflow Rules)
• Univocity Parsers from 1.5.6 to 2.7.6 (affects Adjustment file uploads)
• Synthetica from 2.30.0 to 2.31.1 (affects the Rich Client look and feel)

 

New Software Supported

The following is now supported:

• Wildfly v. 16.x
• Oracle 19c

In addition, both the Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server JDBC drivers were updated.

The complete list of supported software and hardware versions is included in the Infogix Technical Specifications Document included in the application documentation.

 

Java Support

Java support now includes Corretto 8 JVM.

 

Library Updates

In this release, several third-party libraries were updated. These updates increase system security and reliability. Several libraries were updated specifically to address security vulnerabilities.

A major update was that for Hibernate, which is fully compliant with JPA 2.2 and features improved memory consumption.

 

LDAP Group Email Attribute

We now support retrieving the LDAP email attribute for groups.

 

JVM arguments stored in WebSphere properties

JVM arguments are now stored in custom WebSphere properties rather than generic arguments, which eliminates the need for parsing and simplifies deployment.

 

Fixed in this Release

The following issues have been fixed in this release:

ER-10102 The Item filter on the Recon Entity Detail screen and Has Attachment filter on the Recon Entity Detail, Item Search, Recon Entity Search, and Match Set Search screens are disabled for users with read permissions to reconciliation data, but who are not work owners.

ER-10118 Home page preferences in Web Based Administration saved in previous versions of the application no longer work and cause a 404 error.

ER-10128 Updating and saving existing email templates receives a "Name Already Exists" error.

ER-10154 The command line utility to import/export work owners exports all system work owners, including those that should not be visible to users.

ER-10165 From the Item search screen when displaying an email with very long plain text content (i.e., text that uses no HTML styling), the auto wrap functionality does not always work correctly, depending upon the size of the viewer.

ER-10188 Added the Email option for field formatting on the Recon Entity Detail UI to allow administrator’s to enable email formatting in that screen definition; email formatting was already enabled on the Item Search and Detail screens.

IP-3775 SQL Server query causes Admin Console query error #UADC045.

IP-4058 Millisecond is missing for the timestamp datatype field in the SQL Server bulk load file.

IP-4087 Running the crypt-properties.sh script on z/OS for Infogix Assure clients caused the client.properties file to become to unreadable.

IP-4131 Parsing problem when duplicate -Djs.license.directory arguments are present with WebSphere.

IP-4593 WildFly commands don't work with Cygwin.

IP-4699 In WebSphere deployments when passing the parameters infogix.config.enabled and infogix.config.database as JVM arguments, parameter values were reset to true. This forced the administrator to manually revise values to false in the IBM administration console.

IP-4820 The cee-config.CONFIG_PREFIX value fails to evaluate.

IP-4966 Getting an error after generating a Heap Dump and clicking Copy Heap Dump.

IP-4980 Reset button on product configuration page shows incorrect message.

IP-4985 Remove remaining Struts references for the web.xml file.

IP-4986 When generating an Assure user report, the report contains undesired blank lines.

IP-4987 On WebSphere 8.5.5, clicking the Admin Console 'Cache Management' link throws a 500 error. This does not affect WebSphere 9.0 or Wildfly.

IP-5073 Sorting on the Permissions tab displays the progress indicator but does not close it when the task in completed, forcing the user to manually close the progress indicator.

IP-5148 Support packages contain datasources.properties passwords without suppression.

IP-5167 Import/export hangs in HTTP client after repeated execution in the Infogix ER Rich Client.

IP-5201 WildFly configuration logging missing from deploy log.