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PhixFlow vs CenterView

At version 7.0 .0.

This release is for Oracle, SQL Server and MySQL.

Contents

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we have changed the name of CenterView to PhixFlow. This is to reflect the fact that PhixFlow is now much more than an application providing a "central view" of your data, PhixFlow now fixes data and business workflows using configured data analytics for integration and data processing togther with forms with intergrated menus allowing entire applications to be built and hosted within the PhixFlow platform. 

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Installation and Upgrade

To install a new PhixFlow instance, follow the standard installation instructions.

To upgrade an existing PhixFlow instance , follow (called CenterView before version 7.0):

1. First review Compatibility Guide and Upgrade Planning to check any changing requirements for database versions etc.
2. Follow the Standard Upgrade Instructions plus

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1. any special instructions for all intermediate releases listed in Compatibility Guide and Upgrade Planning.

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Contents

This release has no special instructions.

Prerequisites

This PhixFlow release requires:

• Java 8
• Apache Tomcat 8.5

One of:

• Oracle 12c or later
• SQL Server 2012 or later
• MariaDB (MySQL) 10.0.14 or later

Features / Improvements

General

CenterView has changed its name to PhixFlow.

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New Graphical User Interface

This release is the first to feature the new graphical user interface that we have been working on for the past year. The new GUI is built using the React JavaScript library which underpins Facebook's own web and mobile presence. The new GUI is modern, faster, more secure and enables us to deliver PhixFlow applications to both PC and mobile devices. At versiojn 7.0 the new GUI supports all end-user "application" features e.g. applications, dashboards, menus, actions etc., however, model design is still carried out in the previous, flash-based GUI. By the end of 2016, all design features will have been re-written within the new platform and the old flash-based interface will be retired.

In this release, the "look and feel" of the new GUI is deliberately similar to the old interface so that applications made up of dashboards, forms and grids designed in the old GUI will work in the new GUI without needing to make changes. From version 7.1, new design features will be introduced based on Google's material design to enable rich form creation with modern components.

The most notable new features in the new GUI are in data grids:

• Users can quickly filter data by clicking on column headers.
• Users can sort data by clicking on column headers. Sorting operates on all filtered records, not just the records in the paged view
• The user can choose to fix the position of several columns on the left of a data grid. This keeps the columns visible when the the data grid is scrolled horizontally e.g. if there are many columns
• Columns will now automatically "flex" to make use of the avaialble width of the display if their width is set to null (i.e. no value).
• Changes made to the column widths by dragging the column edges are saved when in desgin mode.
• A second, merged header row can be confgiured to provide a visual grouping of related columns.
• Cells within the grids can all be formatted intependently based on their value. E.g. setting backgound and foreground colours, bold, borders etc.
  
  

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Features and Improvements

Streams

In-memory Streams

Analysis now applies limits on the number of items cached in in-memory streams in order to avoid grabbing too much memory (which causes excessive garbage collection and/or system failure). The Limits limits can be controlled on per stream basis or via a In memory cache size default in system configuration. Warnings are reported when in set from the System Configuration form. PhixFlow provides warnings when an in-memory stream has reached 90% of its size. If limits are set to enforced within the System Configuration, then analysis will stop when the limit is reached, otherwise only warning messages are reported in the console logs.

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previous this returned the attribute "abc", now it returns "Def"

Scripting

When using a Date/time function on an Attribute. If , if the date parameter is NULL, the function returns null instead of throwing an exception failing with the message that the date can not be null.

Export / Import

The built-in limit on the size of files that can be imported / uploaded has been increased to 1Gb to allow for larger exported configuration files.

Login

A message can now be set on the PhixFlow home screen which is displayed prior to log in when the application starts up. The location of a file containing the HTML message can be specified in the SystemConfiguration. If this file is set then the contents will be displayed on the home screen.

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A new checkbox has been added to system configuration window - 'restrict non admins only' . When ticked - it restricts login privileges from any non admin user. Only , so only admin users will be able to login. Default value is set to false (unticked checkbox), this allows for every authorised user are able to login.

 It is no longer possible to create a new user without also setting a password, and this avoids a number of secondary issues arising from users that have no password set.

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In the System Configuration - Advanced tab - the 'Schema Version' field can display longer version numbers containing additional label information

Change name of The System Configuration parameter from 'Max Page/Chart Size ' has been renamed to 'Maximum Download Size'.

Active Directory Integration

When logging into PhixFlow as a Active Directory (LDAP) user, the list of user groups for that user are saved in a single database field, and are used to determine which PhixFlow User Groups of which user groups are available in the application. Now exclude any groups provided by active directory if they don't exist in PhixFlow as there are too many user groups providedthe user is a member. Previously, that list of user groups could exceed the size of he database field, resulting in that user being unable to login. The saved list is now limited to those groups that are relevant to PhixFlow.

When an Active Directory user logs in, a user is created in PhixFlow using details taken from the Active Directory server.:

• The user's First Name is populated from the AD Active Directory givenName field.
• The user's Phone Number is set from the first of the following AD Active Directory fields (telephoneNumber, mobile, or ipPhone) that is set.
• The user's Organisation is set to the Company or Department fields from the Active Directory record.

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We have revised the layout of the Email Account form to make it more usable.

Diagnostics

Now a task initialisation failure message contains more details about the failure itself, and in case of stream attribute expressions failures - it contains the details of stream name which failed, stream attribute name which failed, as well as the actual expression that failed.

More A more meaningful message is now provided in case of archiving failure.

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Performance statistics are now recorded in the 'STATSstats' table.

Time duration statistics are now all standardized to be stored in seconds.Statistics Data recorded by PhixFlow is stored in a table called Statsseconds (whole seconds or decimal fractions depending on the statistic).

The start time (from_dtm field) and end time (to_dtm field) fields of each stats record were previously populated with the current time at the start/end of the Monitor Service for each period. However this period started at any number of seconds within a minuteperiod covered, regardless of the relationship between the reporting period and the hour. We now schedule the start time to rounded time within a minute based on the DB  stats reporting period to be scnchronized with the hour based on reporting period set in the System Configuration, e.Ieg. if set to 15 seconds then stats are recorded at seconds 00 / 15 / 45 for each minute.The STATS_RECORD table has been renamed STATS10 minutes, reporting periods will start on the hour, 10 mins past the hour, 20 mins past etc.

The Stream statistics now include the total time write time.

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The statistics recorded now store the full context information when they are written. and the process that initiated the activity. Eg. the Iniator could be "TaskPlan X", with a context of "stream A" with the statistical data recorded for "INSERT_COUNT" (Total count of records inserted for the Stream intiated by Task X). The Initiator context Id's and context Id's are stored should the original name of the Stream/object be modified since having recorded the statistics.

Reset Configuration

Operational

Both web clients now actively check that they are connected to a compatible server. This prevents users from continuing to use an old gui client if the server has been upgraded whilst they were logged in.

Performance

Stream Actions and Task Plans are now compiled the first time they are run, and the compiled versions are saved so that they can be re-used in subsequent runs. This can result in significant performance improvements, particularly for Actions that are run frequently.

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Bug Fixes

Graphical User Interface

Dashboards

Importing a dashboard that had a background filter set to reference a driving view could cause the filter to fail at runtime.

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When creating a Pivot View, A a pivot column source can be set to an Expression referencing a lookup pipe that is used to generate the pivot columns. If the lookup pipe is was self referencing on the stream for a Pivot View, then it is getting the columns read data from the previous stream set in instead of the latest streamset. It now correctly creates the pivot columns using the latest streamset.

Show Pivot views now correctly show the record count in the page status/navigation bar for Pivot Views.

When setting up a Pivot View, a label attribute can be specified. If the same label is used by more than one Pivot column, the view now fails with a message giving the name of the label and which column its already been used on.

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Active directory logging nolonger fails if {instance} not set.

General

A System Task would hang if the number of days to keep statistics records was not configured. Now, if the number of days is blank, no statistics records are deleted.

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