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Introduction

PhixFlow is pleased to announce the release of PhixFlow Version 11.3 This page describes the improvements and fixes in this version.

Installing or Upgrading PhixFlow

To install a new PhixFlow instance:

1. Check System Requirements and Compatibility for details of the PhixFlow system requirements and update any dependencies. 
   1. Please email support@phixflow.com if you are planning to run PhixFlow 11 on an unsupported database version.
2. Follow the instructions in Installing PhixFlow.

To upgrade an existing PhixFlow instance: 

1. PhixFlow must be at version 8.3.18 or later in order to be upgraded to this version. If this is not the case please first upgrade to 8.3.18.
2. Check System Requirements and Compatibility for changes to the system requirements or supported database versions. For example, you may need to upgrade your database or Java version.
   1. Please email support@phixflow.com if you are planning to run PhixFlow 11 on an unsupported database version.
3. Ensure you have a backup of the database before upgrading PhixFlow.

4. Follow the Upgrading PhixFlow steps. It is important to complete any Special Upgrade Instructions for all the intermediate releases between your current version and the version to which you are upgrading.

Improvements and New Features

Actionflows

DEV-16201 - In Actionflows, an "Attachments" section has been added to Email actions. It contains a reference to a file table and a filter, when set it will use the filter to find all applicable files from that file table and include them as attachments on the sent email.

DEV-17379 - Added a new "Retry" section for HTTP actions. This section contains three fields pertaining to automatically reattempting the HTTP connection under certain conditions:

• • • "Retry Expression" is an expression that when it evaluates to "true", instead of the record continuing normally through the Actionflow it will instead attempt to retry the connection.
    • "Retry Interval Expression" is an expression that when it evaluates to an integer determines the amount of time between attempted requests.
    • "Max Attempts" is the maximum number of times the HTTP action will try the HTTP connection before continuing, this must be an integer between 1 and 60.

DEV-17451 - A minimum and maximum number of records can now be enforced on Lookup connection points.
Actionflows that receive too many or too few records will now display a user readable error instead of prompting the user to check the system console.

DEV-17509 - Added the ability to run HTTP actions directly to allow testing of the request.

DEV-17876 - Added support for the lookup() function when used in an Actionflow to perform a lookup (using a request connector).

DEV-18017 - Added a "URL Alias" field to the properties of API Endpoints. When set, instead of the URL being constructed using the Actionflow name and application name, it will use the alias instead. The URL field in the properties will update to reflect the alias set.

DEV-18018 - API Endpoint Input Connection Points now support custom input parameters to be added. These will automatically be mapped from the incoming request URL query parameters or form fields. E.g. If an input parameter called field is added, and the request URL is https://server/phixflow/api/1/action/App/Api/trigger?field=abc then the value "abc" will be populated in the Actionflow. If the query parameter is missing then the parameter will be marked as unavailable unless a default value has been configured for it. When creating the URLs with query parameters care should be taken to ensure that the values are appropriately URL encoded in order to prevent unexpected behaviour.

DEV-18045 - If an action phase runs and has no inputs it will now throw an error.

DEV-18047 - Within an Actionflow, the HTTP action now has a new "Parameters" section which can be used to transmit values within a URL. The values are automatically encoded into a format suitable for passing via a URL and they are added to the end of the URL the HTTP action is calling, with the format:

?param1Name=param1Value&param2Name=param2Value

DEV-18089 - In an Actionflow, when dragging a Gateway node or Actionflow node onto an existing connection between two nodes, if the target node (being connected to) has more than one input connection point a popup appears with the first connection point selected by default. This avoids a user always having to manually select the input connection before confirming.

DEV-18090 - In an Actionflow, creating a connector from a Gateway node will automatically open the corresponding output rule in the properties.

DEV-18139 - Added Email Endpoint actions. Email accounts can now be configured to trigger an email endpoint action when an email is received, rather than saving the email to be picked up by a file collector at a later date. In addition to this, a "Maximum fetch count" has been added to email accounts, which when set will process the emails received by the email account in batches of this number, if not set, default is 2000. Email accounts and Client Token Configurations can now be created in an application or package.

DEV-18164 - In an Actionflow, within a HTTP action, the "Test HTTP Action" window has been redesigned for improved usability into two mains tabs: "Request" and "Response", with existing fields consolidated across these new tabs.

DEV-18220 - Added a new object type "XML Schema Definition". It has the properties: name, namespace and body. The namespace field is used to identify this xml schema definition and the body is used to validate xml. In addition, a new type of action, "XML Validate", has been added to Actionflows. It has a reference to a root XML schema definition (XSD) and optional additional XSDs. When passed XML it will pass the record through its "out" connection point if it is valid, or if it fails validation an error attribute containing a message is passed out of the "error" connection point.

DEV-18279 - A new type of Actionflow has been added called Email Endpoints. Email Endpoints can have a file table configured on them to store email attachments. If this is set up then when an email is received any attachments on that email will be downloaded to that file table's directory and a record with the file details will be created.

DEV-18323 - Email Endpoints can now have additional attributes added to their "in" connection point. Values will be provided by setting an input connection point attribute with the matching name. Any '-' characters are removed from the name.

DEV-18336 - In Actionflows, a "reply to" option has been added to Email actions. When set, the email will have its replyTo option set to the value this field evaluates to.

Administration

DEV-13897 - The Database Driver File Directory can now be set in Administration --> System Configuration --> System Directories. Previously, this was set using a script run against the PhixFlow database. The change simplifies the database drivers installation process.

DEV-17553 - Tomcat 10.1 is now a supported webserver. Please refer to the updated configuration instructions of how to create and use the webapps-javaee folder for the installation and upgrade processes.

DEV-18185 - The responsiveness of the configuration Export popup window has been updated to improve the layout of the popup when enlarged, making it easier to see the details of the exported content.

DEV-18192 - Within the PhixFlow configuration file "local.properties" used as part of the system setup, trailing whitespaces are automatically omitted when the file is processed. This stops the errors previously seen when whitespaces were included.

DEV-18194 - The entry in the System Console for a rollback now includes the Task Plan name.

DEV-18195 - The help link for setting a Home Screen Message in the System Configuration is now correct.

Analysis

DEV-17478 - The database collector menu item 'Run query and display result' now pops out of the hamburger menu if there is enough space.

DEV-17797 - The date-time format yyyyMMddHHmmss is now supported in File Collectors. Date and date-time attributes can now be stored as numbers and strings in upload files.

DEV-18169 - PhixFlow can now connect to SFTP servers using an RSA private key, with optional passphrase support. New fields have been added to the connection settings to support this.

Application

DEV-12660 - When importing files, the password field is now shown on the initial window, improving user experience.

DEV-17300 - The instance name is now displayed in the browser tab before the user logs in.

DEV-17882 - A log message "Initial DTO rebuilding complete" is now printed during start-up to indicate that the start-up data load processes have completed.

DEV-18117 - On start-up, the audit log files are reread and audit events that were not successfully persisted will be replayed into the database.

Common Features

DEV-13113 - Audit summary descriptions no longer include the username, as this is already provided in the username column. Audits summary descriptions created from import changes are now prepended with "Import".

DEV-13114 - The start and end times of Data and Configuration imports and exports are now included in the Audit Summary.

DEV-15542 - When creating filters the case-insensitive flag on table attributes has been changed to case-sensitive to improve readability.

DEV-16126 - Added new logfile retention settings to Task Plans and Actionflows. When set the log file for the Task Plan / Actionflow will be automatically deleted upon completion unless a message of sufficient importance was written. There are two options, one for user generated messages (from the error, debug, info etc functions in expressions) and one for system generated messages.

DEV-16592 - Improved iconography for Datasources designed to make it clearer in the Repository what they are (when headers are removed) and if they are disabled.

DEV-17178 - Filters can now be applied to aggregate attributes on the primary table of a view.

DEV-17569 - Datasources, HTTP Datasources and HTTP Configuration objects can control the number of processing requests permitted in a set time frame, they will now show the number of requests waiting to be sent in their properties.

DEV-17589 - Form values are now validated against the field's backing attributes types and maximum sizes.

DEV-18023 - JSON parsing in expressions will now ignore any name-value pair where the value is unavailable.

DEV-18044 - Added '=' to the list of supported functions for fast expressions (e.g. formatting rules) this allows $ variables to be assigned values and used for these expressions.

ERD

DEV-18281 - Added a new field "Secondary Key" to table attributes. Relations can be connected to Secondary key attributes as well as Primary key attributes. Secondary key relations do not have to be unique and multiple related records can be returned from the same source record.

Performance

DEV-18110 - The performance of drop-down menus has been improved on screens.

DEV-18118 - Improved GUI response times after updating a screen.

Screens

DEV-16803 - Components can now be copied on the same screen by control-dragging or right-clicking the component in the Layers.

DEV-17659 - Word Cloud is now supported as a type of chart that can be added to a Screen.

DEV-17669 - Line Charts now plot the line between data-points when some of the data is missing.

DEV-17803 - Dynamic Text Fields now support placeholder text, shown when no value has been mapped to the field and no default value is configured.

DEV-17832 - There is a new advanced option on Fixed Dropdowns, 'Do Not Trigger Automatic Data Refresh' which works similarly to the same flag on Configurable Dropdowns and Date Fields - it allows the user to decide if changing the value of the Dropdown should cause any Views filtered by the field to refresh.

DEV-17909 - When creating a screen, templates are now separated into the packages they originate from.

DEV-17932 - On a screen, when changing a layout component template, the hover-over text on template items now shows the name and package of the template, in addition to the description.

DEV-18280 - In ScreensScreen building, a new File Record Gallery component is now available in the latest version of Serene Grey. It allows the user to display and manage multiple files, grouped by the folderId attribute on a File Table.

Workflow

None.

Bug Fixes

Actionflows

DEV-11733 - Where an Actionflow returns an error() message, the parent screen will no longer close.

DEV-17707 - In Actionflows, changing the source of an Input Connection will now delete any existing mappings.

DEV-17823 - Actionflow nodes can now be moved between Composite Actionflows and API Endpoints.

DEV-17824 - Opening the properties for a Bulk Update action no longer displays a gateway error.

DEV-17825 - Using the Calculate action lookup wizard will now populate the filter field on the property editor when the new filter is saved.

DEV-17854 - Fixed actions not terminating properly when an error occurred in an Actionflow that was passed a large number of records directly into a loop.

DEV-17864 - Within an Actionflow, Pivot Row View attributes are now mappable, all other pivot role attributes will not appear in the list of available attributes when mapping.

DEV-17935 - Within Actionflows, a fix has been applied to the Calculate Action to always process records in the right order when "prioritise throughput over ordering" is not ticked.

DEV-17961 - Save action attributes will now show the name of the save action as their source when they are mapped as output attributes.

DEV-18031 - Actionflow API Endpoints now support being held in and run from packages as well as applications.

DEV-18034 - In an Actionflow, in the properties for the Email action, a fix has been applied so that when two Email action properties are open at the same time and both have HTML enabled for the Message field, the properties behave correctly.

DEV-18048 - On the Actionflow attribute mapping screen, attributes coming from other Actionflows will now have the name and icon of that actionflow as well as the name of the Actionflow output point.

DEV-18101 - Fixed the Actionflow mapping window not refreshing properly when connected to an input Lookup Connection Point.

DEV-18138 - In Actionflows, a fix has been applied to the saving of View actions when created by a Calculate Lookup wizard.

DEV-18150 - The mapping window on Actionflows now lines up the mapping lines for attributes that are mapped to multiple output attributes, when viewed full screen.

DEV-18166 - In Actionflows, the Bulk Delete action has been fixed to stop the error "attempting to add duplicate field to an item dictionary" from occurring.

DEV-18175 - In Actionflows, within the Run Action feature, values for Boolean (TrueFalse) attributes now use toggles instead of checkboxes to set the value.

DEV-18283 - Fixed Actionflow lookups not working when contained in forEach() loops.

DEV-18295 - In Actionflows, on tables configured to keep audit history, having two Save actions that modify the same record no longer duplicates it.

DEV-18314 - Fixed Actionflows with multiple Phases and no confirmation buttons failing with a null pointer exception in some circumstances.

DEV-18346 - Fixed "unknown field name" errors for Actionflows where the Actionflow contains multiple insert Save actions for the same table.

Administration

DEV-18184 - Fixed a publishing error caused by importing a table that previously existed and was deleted.

DEV-18319 - Resolved behaviour, introduced in PhixFlow V10.0, whereby deleting a table linked to an Analysis model could leave inconsistent configuration data in the database, and cause subsequent configuration edits to fail due to violation of database constraints.

DEV-18369 - In the System Console, when sorting is applied to grid columns no errors now occur.

DEV-18406 - Fixed issue whereby recorded Audit information, which records changes to individual object properties, were corrupted in cases where the values are not displayed to the user e.g. changes to user passwords.

Analysis

DEV-16677 - Improved error message when JSON parsing fails within an HTTP Collector.

DEV-17712 - PhixFlow now supports reading BLOB columns from Database Collectors in to String values.

DEV-18004 - PhixFlow Datasources now support multiline secret keys.

DEV-18177 - In Analysis Models, emails with long subjects will now be included in processing.

DEV-18390 - In Analysis Models, resolved issues with Database Collectors unable to fetch from SQLServer database columns of type 'uniqueidentifier' when they have a null value.

Application

DEV-18266 - Resolved failure on SQL Server to load application translation maps.

Common Features

DEV-12961 - Sequences are no longer reset during import.

DEV-13809 - Improved audit when data retention settings are changed on a table.

DEV-16155 - Improved audit when adding attributes to funnel actions.

DEV-16938 - Improved auditing when adding or removing tables on a Task Plan.

DEV-17523 - Relational attributes can now be used on pivot views.

DEV-17613 - Adding and removing attributes from Views now correctly refreshes them.

DEV-17841 - PhixFlow now correctly recognizes Spreadsheet Tabs including illegal XML characters (whitespaces, brackets, etc).

DEV-18022 - Tables with Pipe Views will now show the list of attributes from the View in the autocomplete in their attribute expressions instead of the attributes from the input table.

DEV-18167 - Date conversion now supports a wider range of ISO style timestamps, including those with timezone information, such as '2024-08-19T00:00:00.000Z', '2012-01-31 18:01:30+10:00' and '20120131T080130Z'.

DEV-18190 - Fixed issues with hover popup not appearing on Analysis Models, Workflows, Actionflow and ERDs when zoomed out.

DEV-18425 - Filtering with a list starting with a null value, no longer causes an error.

DEV-18438 - In XML Actions, renamed the XML Namespace fields: Name to Prefix and Value to URI.

DEV-18460 - In Table Actions, _prompt forms now correctly send values set on Date and DateTime fields.

ERD

DEV-18320 - Fixed relation arrows on ERDs not always pointing to the correct foreign key attribute.

DEV-18420 - The display name field linked to the foreign key is no longer added to a form when a multi-hop relation is created.

Performance

None.

Screens

DEV-16341 - On Screens, we have fixed the problem causing the error 'Could not refresh data' showing when refreshing multiple grids and forms in parallel.

DEV-17011 - On Screens, when setting the flex-direction or flex-flow using a CSS Property on an Area component, it now sets the 'display' property to 'flex'.

DEV-17619 - On Screens, we have fixed the problem with driven views getting out of sync if the driving selection changes while they are still refreshing.

DEV-17639 - Fixed multiple presentation issues with the Floating Components Menu on Screens and in the Layers.

DEV-17805 - On Screens, if the outermost area has a backing table and then becomes an inner area, the Table field will still be visible in the Properties for that area.

DEV-17845 - When configuring a screen, changing the Template used by a Drop-Down form field now works correctly.

DEV-17859 - Form Fields on a Screen backed by a Relational Attributes do not use the validation held against them on their table.

DEV-17913 - On Screens, the Layers now appears when editing a Menu.

DEV-17983 - Fixed problems with charts colours when adding Custom Series and restricted Custom Series names to be valid Attributes names.

DEV-18112 - Aggregation on dynamic text fields can now be filtered on. This was already possible for standard input fields.

DEV-18156 - Default Filters created through View and View Component properties now correctly display on the View's Filters list.

DEV-18165 - Fixed the problem with Screens getting stuck out of focus after opening a menu.

DEV-18168 - It is now possible to set a double-click action on a View Component that will override any default double-click action set on the View referenced by the View Component.

DEV-18170 - Warning toast messages are no longer displayed when mixing shorthand CSS properties. CSS Properties such as 'margin', 'padding' and 'border' are now normalised to ensure they are applied correctly across all style settings (for example, "padding 1 2 3 4" is normalized to "padding-top 1, padding-right 2, padding-bottom 3, padding-left 4").

DEV-18181 - Fixed confirmation buttons to ensure the selected Actionflow phase runs.

DEV-18183 - After adding an Actionflow to an Event Handler, screens no longer require reopening to get that action to run.

DEV-18301 - When creating screens, background image positions for component styles will now be normalised. Where a single Custom value is provided for the background position, the value will be used for both horizontal and vertical settings. Additionally the Custom fields will accept numbers without "px" at the end.

DEV-18307 - On Screens, grid column styles are now applied correctly when using date or date-time attributes.

DEV-18451 - Fixed hidden view components on screens sometimes causing other screens to not refresh.

Workflow

DEV-18299 - In Workflows, the Actionflow icons now display correctly.