To upgrade an existing PhixFlow instance: 

1. 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.
2. Ensure you have a backup of the database before upgrading PhixFlow.

3. Follow the Upgrading PhixFlow steps. It is important to complete Step 8, in which you apply any Special Upgrade Instructions for all the intermediate releases between your current version and the version to which you are upgrading. See below for the special instructions for this version.

Bug Fixes

DEV-10777  Changes to Database Collector SQL statements are now recorded in the audit log.

To upgrade an existing PhixFlow instance: 

1. 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.
2. Ensure you have a backup of the database before upgrading PhixFlow.

3. Follow the Upgrading PhixFlow steps. It is important to complete Step 8, in which you apply any Special Upgrade Instructions for all the intermediate releases between your current version and the version to which you are upgrading. See below for the special instructions for this version.

Bug Fixes

DEV-10652  Scheduled tasks and manually-run tasks now always merge correctly. Previously, occasional incorrect merges caused:

• the scheduled task to hang before all work was complete
• log messages for the manual task to appear in the log messages for the scheduled task.

To upgrade an existing PhixFlow instance: 

1. 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.
2. Ensure you have a backup of the database before upgrading PhixFlow.

3. Follow the Upgrading PhixFlow steps. It is important to complete Step 8, in which you apply any Special Upgrade Instructions for all the intermediate releases between your current version and the version to which you are upgrading. See below for the special instructions for this version.

Bug Fixes

DEV-9162  Component mappings now correctly take the values from the mapped dashboard element.

DEV-8395  Error messages when deleting temporary files now correctly report information for troubleshooting.

DEV-9111  Fixed issues that could result in reading the wrong stream data following rollback.

1. 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.
2. Ensure you have a backup of the database before upgrading PhixFlow.

3. Follow the Upgrading PhixFlow steps. It is important to complete Step 8, in which you apply any Special Upgrade Instructions for all the intermediate releases between your current version and the version to which you are upgrading. We also recommend that you republish the PhixFlow data as described in Step 10 of Upgrading PhixFlow.

Features and Improvements

DEV-6278  It is now possible to run default (double-click) actions on line charts.

DEV-8824  Excel templates now have a configurable minInflateRatio threshold, which you can set in the server.properties file.

Bug Fixes

DEV-8809  Line and bar charts now correctly display FLOAT- and DECIMAL-valued attributes.

1. 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.
2. Ensure you have a backup of the database before upgrading PhixFlow.

3. Follow the Upgrading PhixFlow steps. It is important to complete Step 8, in which you apply any Special Upgrade Instructions for all the intermediate releases between your current version and the version to which you are upgrading. We also recommend that you republish the PhixFlow data as described in Step 10 of Upgrading PhixFlow.

Recommendation

We recommend that you tick the System Configuration option Log Statistics. This option generates data that is very useful:

• when troubleshooting problems
• when tuning applications or the PhixFlow system to improve performance.

Bug Fixes

DEV-8229  Setting a number format in PhixFlow no longer affects how a value is saved to the database.

DEV-8235  You can now type only 15 digits into a floating point field, as this is the maximum number of significant digits allowed. 

DEV-8283  When running the upgrader, a database connection leak could occur. This has been resolved. The leak could cause errors such as "too many files".

1. 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.
2. Ensure you have a backup of the database before upgrading PhixFlow.

3. Follow the Upgrading PhixFlow steps. It is important to complete Step 8, in which you apply any Special Upgrade Instructions for all the intermediate releases between your current version and the version to which you are upgrading. We also recommend that you republish the PhixFlow data as described in Step 10 of Upgrading PhixFlow.

Bug Fixes

DEV-8195  When upgrading PhixFlow on SQL Server, the java upgrader no longer incorrectly keeps indexes that include the superceded_dtm column. This was causing the upgrade to fail.

DEV-7806  In an analysis model, if you rerun analysis after a failed analysis run on a transactional stream, PhixFlow now correctly deletes the data from the failed run before reprocessing the transactional stream.

DEV-8036  In legacy forms, actions triggered from a form view will now find the attributes set in _prompt.

DEV-8039  Number formats with Use thousands separator ticked no longer overwrite trailing zeroes when Suppress trailing zeroes is also ticked.

DEV-8209  User groups now correctly export then import to another PhixFlow instance. 

1. 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.
2. Ensure you have a backup of the database before upgrading PhixFlow.

3. Follow the Upgrading PhixFlow steps. It is important to complete Step 8, in which you apply any Special Upgrade Instructions for all the intermediate releases between your current version and the version to which you are upgrading.

4. After upgrading, we recommend you republish the PhixFlow data as described in Step 10 of Upgrading PhixFlow.

Improvements

DEV-7986  If a datasource has an unsupported JDBC 4 or 4.1 driver, PhixFlow no longer prevents it being used by reporting an error. PhixFlow will continue to report errors for JDBC 3 and earlier drivers.

Bug Fixes

DEV-7989  The  _prompt function now correctly allows only alpha-numerical values and the underscore character in filter field names.

DEV-7088  When downloading data from the Imported/Exported Files tab in the system console, the Excel output file will now correctly display the Created Date column.

DEV-8000  Form fields are now correctly updated in the following circumstances:

• a grid drives a second grid, that drives a form
• and the record selected on the first grid causes the second grid to return no records.
  Previously, the form fields were not being updated to show blank values.

1. 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.
2. Ensure you have a backup of the database before upgrading PhixFlow.

3. Follow the Upgrading PhixFlow steps. It is important to complete Step 8, in which you apply any Special Upgrade Instructions for all the intermediate releases between your current version and the version to which you are upgrading.

4. After upgrading, we recommend you republish the PhixFlow data as described in Step 10 of Upgrading PhixFlow.
   
   

<bean id="sameSiteCookieFilter"
  class="com.accipia.centerview.web.filter.SameSiteCookieFilter">
  <property name="cookies">
    <props>
      <!-- The following line must be uncommented to allow SAML login -->
      <prop key="JSESSIONID">None</prop>
    </props>
  </property>
</bean>	

Improvements

DEV-7793  SAML authentication now requires HTTPS; see SAML Configuration upgrade instructions, above.
In addition, you can now configure SAML Single Logout, in which the SAML identity provider is notified of user logout.  To configure single logout, update the phixflow-login.xml attribute map to add <property name="globalLogout" value="true" />. 

DEV-7823  You can now select and copy text from error and warning messages.

Bug Fixes

DEV-7937  For HTTP collectors and exporters, PhixFlow no longer reports warnings if the charset is not specified on the request or response.

DEV-7867   The options for background filters now correctly include the Ignore case tick box.

DEV-7947  PhixFlow will now only connect to an FTP Site when the Enabled property is ticked.

To upgrade an existing PhixFlow instance: 

1. 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.
2. Ensure you have a backup of the database before upgrading PhixFlow.

3. Follow the Upgrading PhixFlow steps. It is important to complete Step 8, in which you apply any Special Upgrade Instructions for all the intermediate releases between your current version and the version to which you are upgrading.

4. This release includes changes that affect the PhixFlow database. After upgrading, remember to republish the PhixFlow data as described in Step 10 of Upgrading PhixFlow.
   
   

Improvements

DEV-7911  There is now a Suppress Trailing Zeroes option, to specify whether or not to display trailing zeroes in decimal or floating point numbers. The option is available in System Configuration and Number Formats properties. In a number format, the option defaults to the method set in system configuration. When suppressing trailing zeros, if the first digit after the decimal place is a zero, it is always displayed. For example, with suppress trailing zeroes selected, a number entered as:

• 1.50 is displayed as 1.5
• 23.000 is displayed as 23.0.

Bug Fixes

DEV-7859  When updating the FTP site details used by a file exporter, PhixFlow uses the latest details instead of incorrectly using older, cached details.

DEV-7762  Formatting rules can now use the contains() function. This means PhixFlow will not hide dashboard form elements whose formatting rules include the contains() function.

DEV-7879  PhixFlow now accepts a password reset using any of the security questions. 

DEV-7912  Decimal and floating point numbers that have many decimal places (more than 15 significant figures) no longer cause rounding errors.

To upgrade an existing PhixFlow instance: 

1. 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.
2. Ensure you have a backup of the database before upgrading PhixFlow.

3. Follow the Upgrading PhixFlow steps. It is important to complete Step 8, in which you apply any Special Upgrade Instructions for all the intermediate releases between your current version and the version to which you are upgrading.

4. This release includes changes that affect the PhixFlow database. After upgrading, remember to republish the PhixFlow data as described in Step 10 of Upgrading PhixFlow.

Bug Fixes

DEV-7274  PhixFlow no longer applies a hard-coded tablespace name to Oracle. Administrators can set the Oracle tablespace name in System Configuration → Advanced → Data Storage (as before). If no tablespace name is specified, PhixFlow uses the default set in the Oracle database.

To upgrade an existing PhixFlow instance: 

1. 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.
2. Ensure you have a backup of the database before upgrading PhixFlow.

3. Follow the Upgrading PhixFlow steps. It is important to complete Step 8, in which you apply any Special Upgrade Instructions for all the intermediate releases between your current version and the version to which you are upgrading.

4. This release includes changes that affect the PhixFlow database. After upgrading, remember to republish the PhixFlow data as described in Step 10 of Upgrading PhixFlow.

Bug Fixes

DEV-7762  Formatting rules can now use the contains() function. This means PhixFlow will not hide dashboard form elements whose formatting rules include the contains() function.

To upgrade an existing PhixFlow instance: 

1. 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.
2. Ensure you have a backup of the database before upgrading PhixFlow.

3. Follow the Upgrading PhixFlow steps. It is important to complete Step 8, in which you apply any Special Upgrade Instructions for all the intermediate releases between your current version and the version to which you are upgrading.

4. This release includes changes that affect the PhixFlow database. After upgrading, remember to republish the PhixFlow data as described in Step 10 of Upgrading PhixFlow.

Bug Fixes

DEV-7755  Double-clicking a cell in an aggregate view column now correctly runs the default action for the view.

To upgrade an existing PhixFlow instance: 

1. 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.
2. Ensure you have a backup of the database before upgrading PhixFlow.

3. Follow the Upgrading PhixFlow steps. It is important to complete Step 8, in which you apply any Special Upgrade Instructions for all the intermediate releases between your current version and the version to which you are upgrading.

4. This release includes changes that affect the PhixFlow database. After upgrading, remember to republish the PhixFlow data as described in Step 10 of Upgrading PhixFlow.

Improvements

PhixFlow and its libraries have been updated to maintain security.

Bug Fixes

DEV-7744  Actions referring to BigString fields on forms will no longer always return a value of NaN.

DEV-7177  Resolved issues with windows disappearing in Design Mode when running PhixFlow on Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 or older versions of Microsoft Edge.

To upgrade an existing PhixFlow instance: 

1. 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.
2. Ensure you have a backup of the database before upgrading PhixFlow.

3. Follow the Upgrading PhixFlow steps. It is important to complete Step 8, in which you apply any Special Upgrade Instructions for all the intermediate releases between your current version and the version to which you are upgrading.

4. This release includes changes that affect the PhixFlow database. After upgrading, remember to republish the PhixFlow data as described in Step 10 of Upgrading PhixFlow.

Bug Fixes

DEV-7719  For a form backed by stream, the stream will no longer always be set to a Default Data Range of Latest.

To upgrade an existing PhixFlow instance: 

1. 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.
2. Ensure you have a backup of the database before upgrading PhixFlow.

3. Follow the Upgrading PhixFlow steps. It is important to complete Step 8, in which you apply any Special Upgrade Instructions for all the intermediate releases between your current version and the version to which you are upgrading.

4. This release includes changes that affect the PhixFlow database. After upgrading, remember to republish the PhixFlow data as described in Step 10 of Upgrading PhixFlow.

Improvements

DEV-7612 Additional locales have been added for Brazil, Peru and Columbia.

DEV-7613 Translated text is now set as to be a big string, so is no longer limited to 255 characters.

Bug Fixes

DEV-7673  Dashboards now correctly refresh values that are determined by context parameters.

To upgrade an existing PhixFlow instance: 

1. 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.
2. Ensure you have a backup of the database before upgrading PhixFlow.

3. Follow the Upgrading PhixFlow steps. It is important to complete Step 8, in which you apply any Special Upgrade Instructions for all the intermediate releases between your current version and the version to which you are upgrading.

4. This release includes changes that affect the PhixFlow database. After upgrading, remember to republish the PhixFlow data as described in Step 10 of Upgrading PhixFlow.

Bug Fixes

DEV-7569  For layout components, changes to Style Settings are now listed in the Audit Summary.

DEV-7571  In both the system console and the log details, all error and warning messages are now highlighted in red or orange respectively.

DEV-7599  PhixFlow correctly displays dashboards with multiple areas.

DEV-7607  Out-of-date details in the readme.file supplied with the release have been corrected.

Discontinued Features

The following options, or items and their associated privileges, have been removed:

DEV-7172 Phixfow streams automatically write records to the database in a single transaction where appropriate. As they are no longer required, the stream properties→ Advanced → Write in Single Transaction and associated Maximum Records to Write have been removed. 

DEV-7247  The archive task property Archive to File has been removed.

DEV-7165  The following options have been removed from the User properties:

• Notify By Text
• Notify by Email

Any user with an email address may be sent notification emails. To send text/SMS notifications use an analysis model connected to an SMS service API.

DEV-7135  Removed logging of action context values.

Databases Going Out of Support

Please email support@phixflow.com if you are planning to run PhixFlow 8.2.0 on an unsupported database version.

Changes to Privileges

There are new privileges in 8.2.0. 

• Download Unlimited Data: to exceed the system or stream view limits on the amount of data the user can download to a file from PhixFlow.
• Download Confidential Information: to export user information from a detailed list to an Excel file. By default, the Administrator role has this privilege.
• View Download Area: to open the download area, where exported configurations are saved. The download area displays only those files that you have permission to see.
  When you upgrade to version 8.2.0, this privilege will be added to any roles that have the Export Configuration privilege, including
  • the standard PhixFlow roles
  • any other roles you have created.
• Enable System Logging: to enable system logging Allow Logging for modelling objects that handle data.
• Modify System Logging Configuration: to change the system logging options or Log Traffic Property for modelling objects that handle data.
• View System Logging Configuration: to see system console log messages for modelling objects that handle data.
• Create User: to create a new user in PhixFlow
• Modify User: to change user properties
• Delete User: to delete a user from PhixFlow
• Add and Remove Own User Groups: to allow the user to add themselves to a group. Migration to PhixFlow version 8.2.0 automatically adds this privilege to roles with User Administration or Add and Remove Users From User Groups privileges.

Changed privileges:

•  Add and Remove Users from User Groups privilege no longer allows a user to add themselves to a group.

Features and Improvements

PhixFlow and its libraries have been updated to maintain security.

DEV-7193, DEV-7194  PhixFlow now supports Tomcat 9 and AdoptOpenJDK (Java) 11.

DEV-7233 PhixFlow's behaviour when you copy an item using the Administration → Export Options → Open Configuration Export Pane has changed. In PhixFlow, items are often associated with other items. For example a stream is run by an analysis task or a style is used by a layout component. In previous versions, making a copy of an item could also modify an associated item. In this release, associated items are no longer modified. The following table provides some examples:

DOC-178  The PhixFlow help content has been restructured and the pages have been labelled. This means when you find a useful page, you can click on one of its labels to find related pages. For example, open the Localising Applications page and in the bottom right, click on the localise label to see all pages about localising data or translating text.

Performance

 PhixFlow performance has been maintained and improved. Note that, as a result:

• DEV-6314  PhixFlow now caches dashboard data on the server. This change affects the phixflow-datasource.xml files. See the special upgrade instructions, above.

• DEV-7028  The database indexing scheme for streams has changed.

Analysis Models

Datasources, Collectors and Exporters, Email export, Streams and Pipes, Stream Views

DEV-6318  For several versions, PhixFlow has been able to set the file collector and stream properties when you upload an Excel file. To make this feature easier to find and use, file collectors now have an Auto Configuration check box. For .xls files, PhixFlow loads the first worksheet from the file. For .xlsx files, you can now select which worksheet to load; see Easy Loading for Excel Spreadsheets.

DEV-7291  When connecting to secure FTP sites, PhixFlow automatically uses current ciphers. It does not use deprecated ciphers, such as 3des-cbc and blowfish-cbc by default. When you set up an FTP Site modelling object, use the new SFTP Cipher field to enable deprecated ciphers and to put ciphers in order of preference; see FTP Site.

DEV-6156  In the grid view, you can right-click a column to Show Attributes for <stream name>
. In the list of attributes, you can then select attributes to show or hide them in the grid view. In previous releases, an open property tab for an attribute was not updated to reflect changes to the show/hide status of the attribute. PhixFlow now automatically ticks the Hidden check box in any open attribute property tabs. 

DEV-6698  For lookup pipes, the properties related to data caching are now easier to find and use; see Pipe.

DEV-6620, DEV-6621  There have been improvements to HTTP collectors and HTTP exporters: 

• logs will now show that an Authorization header (but not its value) has been included. 
• POST, PUT or DELETE requests with a blank statement automatically set the HTTP header to Content-Length: 0.

DEV-6912  When you are working with a stream view in Design Mode, the context menu includes the option to Show stream view configuration when the dashboard is locked.

DEV-6756  In the Show Stream Item Details window, attributes that hold bigstring data are now have a larger display area.

DEV-6787  In stream properties →  Multipliers and Filters, the Output Filter field name has changed to Select Records to Output. This is to make it clearer that the expression passes on the selected (true) records.

DEV-6784, DEV-6746  The following change applies to streams that are:

• either self-updating
• or have Audit Manual Changes selected
• or both.

During an analysis run, records that will be changed by the run are marked as superseded. In previous versions, if the analysis run failed, the records were left as superseded. At the start of the next analysis run, PhixFlow would run rollback to reinstate the superseded records before running analysis. From version 8.2.0, PhixFlow will automatically run rollback to reinstate superseded records at the end of a failed run.

There is no change to the way other streams are processed when an analysis run fails.

DEV-6912  When you are working with a stream view in Design Mode, the context menu includes the option to Show stream view configuration when the dashboard is locked.

DEV-6680  For stream views, dashboard elements and card components, you can now control which stream sets are used to provide data from the backing stream. On the stream use, Basic Settings → Default Data Range to select:

• either Latest:  to display the records from the latest stream set only. This is recommended when stream sets are updated by batch process, and therefore have a Period of Daily or Monthly. 
  
• or All: to display the records from all stream sets. This is recommended when stream sets are updated incrementally and therefore have a Period of Transactional or Variable.

You can override the default on specific dashboard elements and card layout component, using their Use Custom Data Range and Data Range  properties.

DEV-6956   PhixFlow reports an error if you use a stream that has failed to be published to the database. You must correct the stream configuration, so that PhixFlow can retry publishing the stream.

DEV-7291  When connecting to secure FTP sites, PhixFlow automatically uses current ciphers. It does not use deprecated ciphers, such as 3des-cbc and blowfish-cbc. When you set up an FTP Site modelling object, use the new SFTP Cipher field to enable deprecated ciphers and to put ciphers in order of preference; see FTP Site.

DEV-4745  PhixFlow now automatically sets up the directories needed by a file collector for a managed file when it is imported to another instance. When you run analysis or upload the managed file, PhixFlow no longer reports that the directory does not exist.

Applications

Dashboards, layouts and layout components, styles, palettes, actions and context parameters.

General

DEV-6067  The repository  collapse toolbar button now collapses the Applications branch.

DEV-6509, DEV-6571, DEV-6595  The Application menu is now displayed as a card view. When a user opens PhixFlow with a URL that does not specify an application, the Application menu is opened automatically. To create an application, in Design Mode click the last New Application card. You can specify the icon that appears on each card in the application properties → Basic Settings → Application Icon. If you do not specify an icon, PhixFlow displays the default icon in the card.

DEV-6590, DEV-6586  The application properties tab has new options for configuring the Application menu; see Application.

• Do not show in the Application menu: hide applications that are in development or are used for testing. These applications are still available from the repository.
• Application Icon: select an image to appear in the application menu card.
• Application Logo: configure the Application menu icon. This is usually the PhixFlow logo .

DEV-6960  When using nested cards in Application mode, clicking on a button selects the card and any outer card container as well.

Layouts and Dashboards

There is a new Theme 2 set of palettes available to download and install. These palettes make it easy to create responsive GUI screens for your applications; see About Themes and Using Theme 2.

DEV-6403  When you right-click on a drop-down layout component to Copy as template, PhixFlow now also copies the component's data mapping configuration.

DEV-6448  Stream view components and card components now use the same mechanism as dashboard elements to configure which stream sets (data periods) to show. In the layout properties for these components:

1. Tick Use Custom Data Range to display the Data Range option.
2. In the Data Range drop-down, select either All or Latest. PhixFlow will overwrite the backing stream view's period to make the requested stream sets available to the card or stream view.

If a card component has the check box unticked and does not have a backing stream view, all records will be returned, instead of just one.

DEV-6468  When creating new layout components, entering the name is now easier. PhixFlow automatically puts focus into the field and you can press the Return key to save the name. This means you no longer need to click into the component name field or to click  OK to enter a name.

DEV-7230  You can now set placeholder text for the layout components Date-Time Fields and Drop-Down Fields.

DEV-7426   In previous versions, dragging a stream attribute onto a form automatically set the backing stream on the outer-most layout component, when no backing stream is already set. Previously there was no indication that this had been done. PhixFlow now prompts you to confirm if you want to set this stream as the backing stream for the form. 

DEV-7229  When setting placeholder text in layout components, there is a new check box Use Field Name as Place Holder. Tick this to use the field name as the placeholder text in the empty field.

DEV-6128  You can now Auto Size more layout components:

• URL components
• String Field components with HTML formatting.

DEV-7158  The layout properties tab → Advanced section has a new Test Handle option. Application designers can use this if they develop automated tests for their application.

DEV-7470  The audit record now includes changes to the backing stream or stream view on an area layout component.

DEV-7316  Area layout components can now act as a drag handle. This means the user can move the whole dashboard around on the screen by clicking in the area and dragging with their mouse. In the area layout properties → Advanced→ View Types, select Dashboard Drag Handle.

DEV-7318  Layout components that are used as templates can now have a different label in the palette. You can set this in the Layout property → Advanced → Palette Label.

DEV-7458  There is a new palette property, Help URL where you can add a link to additional information to help people to use your palette. PhixFlow displays the palette header bar with a  Help icon which links to the URL specified here.

DEV-7554  Drop-down lists open when you type into the field or click the list icon, rather than opening when you move to the field.

New Support for Kanban Boards

DEV-6608  Card components now have properties so that you can easily create kanban boards. You can use a kanban board to show work at various stages of a process. Each column represents a stage in the process. Each piece of work is represented by a card.  In the Layout → Kanban Board section, select an attribute from the backing stream to define kanban columns, and optionally their headings. PhixFlow creates one card for each record in the stream data, and displays it in the appropriate column. To define the styles for the columns and headings, use the options in Layout → Style Settings.

There are two ways to move cards to different columns. 

• Either update the backing stream data. When you refresh the kanban board, PhixFlow automatically moves the cards to the columns that reflect their stage in the process.
• Or drag a card from one column to another. PhixFlow automatically updates the value of its kanban attributes to reflect the target column. 

Actions

DEV-6397  You can now supply much longer confirmation messages for actions. To create a message, use Action → Confirmation Message. The maximum length for a message string is determined by System Configuration → System Tuning → Maximum Bigstring Size.

DEV-6666  Properties related to the progress of an action have moved to the Progress Indicator Settings section of the action properties tab.

DEV-6319  PhixFlow behaves differently when running in   Design Mode compared to running in App Mode. When you trigger an action to save changes to data:

• In App Mode, PhixFlow saves the data.
• In Design Mode, PhixFlow does not save the data. This is because you need to be able to click on components in a screen to edit their properties.

To make this distinction clearer, if you trigger an action to save in Design Mode, PhixFlow will now remind you that no updates will be saved.  

Common Features

Filters, tasks and task plans, data formats, functions and macros, interface menus and toolbars

DEV-6405  The  Users icon has moved from the top left of the PhixFlow window, to the bottom right. This icon no longer opens a menu. Instead it opens the user details. The  Logout option is now next to the user icon. The support and help menu options have moved to the Administration menu.

The bottom-right of the window currently looks like this.

DEV-6456  The Administration menu now has related options grouped together in sub-menus. Also, for applications accessed on mobile devices applications, the gray task bar now shows a reduced set of information.

DEV-6469  In property tabs, drop-down lists now have a button to clear the selection.

DEV-6526  Items listed in the repository that can be enabled now also have a context menu option Disable.

DEV-6225  Formatting rule expressions can now take the functions: do(), switch(), listContains(), countElements() and excluded().

DEV-7438  When adding attributes to a stream view grid, you can now drop the attributes anywhere on the grid. Previously you could only drop the attributes on the header row.

DEV-5762  Column filters created by selected values from a drop-down list now keep previously selected values. This means you can easily add or remove values from the selected list.

DEV-7396  In the stream properties, the Archive Settings section has been renamed to Data Retention Settings. The archive task has been renamed to Stream Data Delete task; see Using Tasks and Task Plans.

DEV-6336  A stream-data-delete task that applies to specific streams will lose its streams if they are deleted from the PhixFlow repository. In previous versions of PhixFlow, an "archive" task with no specified streams would automatically run on all streams that had:

• archive settings
• are not in any other task.

To prevent stream-data-delete tasks switching to a behaviour that is not required, there is a new All Streams option. Tick this option so that a task can run on streams that have Data Retention Settings but are not in any other task. If a stream-data-delete task has no specified streams and has All Streams unticked, PhixFlow will not run the task.

DEV-6753  In the internal variable _user, you can now specify a user name that is qualified by the domain, for example joe.bloggs.bigcorp.com. 

DEV-6768  There is a new byteLength attribute function. It is similar to stringLength, but it returns the number of bytes of a string. The default encoding is UTF8, but you can specify a different string encoding type. This function can be useful in HTTP Exporters.

DEV-6815  When you are editing fields containing secure data, such as passwords, you can now switch between displaying the text and displaying the row of dots that represent the text. When setting a password, you only need to enter it once. When a password has been saved, you cannot view it.

DEV-6836  The split() attribute function now accepts an empty or null-valued argument for the string to be split. In this case, the function returns an empty string.

DEV-6736  When you create a new item with configurable permissions, you must save it before you can change its permissions. When you untick All Users can view, you must supply at least one user group before you can save the item's properties. 

DEV-7019  When you show the paging bar on grid header2, it is now displayed immediately rather than when the grid is next scrolled.

DEV-6942  When you are configuring translation of an application, you can now set stream attribute <values> to be included. Tick the new Stream Attribute → Advanced → Translate Values check box. For information about configuring translation, see Translating an Application Interface. 

DEV-7085   The limit of 2000 characters on email message fields has been removed.

DEV-7050  Password reset now only validates the new password against the password policy when the security question has been correctly answered.

DEV-7096  There are two new toolbar buttons on the properties tab for a task plan rule. They provide more options to select a task plan. You can:

•   Add a new task plan
•  Show Task Plans.

DEV-7063  When a user exports data using the  Download data to file button, PhixFlow logs the username with the start of export information.

DEV-6954  It is no longer possible to apply a column filter to pivot columns, as this caused an error.

DEV-7140  Previously if an error occurred multiple times during an action or task plan, the same error message was repeated in the pop-up notification. PhixFlow now reports duplicated error messages once, with the number of  times the error occurred.

DEV-7176  The dashboard context menu option Show Context Parameters now displays the list of context parameters in alphabetical order, with the value for each parameter.

Administration

Users, permissions, security, configuration, installation

PhixFlow and its libraries have been updated to maintain security.

DEV-6376  In previous versions, when a user exported an application, package or stream data, PhixFlow displayed a temporary download notification. If the user was not available to click the notification, they would lose the exported zip file. Now, PhixFlow saves the exported zip files for a time and opens a window listing the files available to download. Administrators can set the:

• download folder in System Configuration →System Directories → File Download Location
• how long files are available: System Configuration →General Settings → File Download Expiry. By default, files are kept for 24 hours.

Any users who export configurations need access to the download area. Administrators must make sure they belong to a user group that has the View Download Area privilege.

DEV-4936, DEV-7434, DEV-7432  You can now configure PhixFlow to log more information about data processing in analysis models; see System Monitoring. This requires the Enable System Logging privilege. To enable modelling object logging, tick System Logging → Allow Logging, then configure logging for:

• all instances of a type of modelling object in the System Logging options for Pipes and Collectors/Exporters and, for HTTP data, the Maximum HTTP Log Length; see System Logging Configuration.
• specific modelling objects, using their Log Traffic (or equivalent) property.

The System Console displays the additional log messages for the activity that caused the modelling object to run. 

As part of these changes, the following System Logging options have been renamed

• Log Collector Statements is now HTTP Collector Connection Details
• Log Exporter Statements is now HTTP Exporter Connection Details

DEV-7067, DEV-7346  PhixFlow has had several improvements to the messages. Some error messages have been rewritten to be more helpful. System warnings are now only displayed to users who have View Log File or Show Console privileges. The appearance of PhixFlow pop-up messages has changed. Each message has:

• a simple, user-friendly summary
• a More Detail link to technical information
• for users with permission to View Log Files, a button to open the log file containing the error message
• if configured, a Report button to email the details to IT support. The email includes a link to log file so the administrator can easily access full details of the error.
  Administrators can configure the email recipient in System Configuration → General settings → Error Reporting Email Address.

DEV-6432  In previous versions, you could encrypt passwords in a configuration export by providing a password when the file was exported. Now,

• if you provide a password, the whole export file is encrypted
• passwords and security questions are no longer included in a configuration export.

DEV-6534  To improve data security, users can now use a saved password to encrypt export zip files. When the zip file is imported into another instance of PhixFlow, the user must provide the password that was used to encrypt the file. The password can be set by:

• administrators:  User → Export Password
• users: User Details → Export Password tab

A user can optionally set a different, temporary, password when they start the export.

DEV-6377  There is a new type of task called Configuration Export Task. Use this task to schedule an export of your PhixFlow system or selected packages or applications. PhixFlow saves the export zip file to the new download folder. Remember to add the View Download Area privilege to your user groups, so that users can access the download folder.

DEV-6723  You can now export individual actions, provided they do not have a parent stream. You can now drag the action from the repository to the export pane. 

DEV-6273  When you export a configuration or stream data, the default file name now includes the PhixFlow instance name and a timestamp.

DEV-6690  When exporting a PhixFlow configuration, you can now specify a file name for the export and a description. 

DEV-6266, DEV-6685  To improve logging information during the export or import of a configuration:

• the description is now associated with log file messages. Descriptions are optional and are added by the user when they create the export.

• import log files now include the name of the imported file.

DEV-6435  Log file names can now be 250 characters long. They were previously restricted to 80 characters. This restriction could prevent rollback tasks running if a stream had a long name.

DEV-6549  It is now possible to show or hide the headers in an application file, in the same way as you can for packages. This makes it easier to review the application to see which objects it contains.

DEV-6514  To help with troubleshooting, administrators can switch on security logging, to identify the cause of user login fails. For information about logs, see;

• Server Log Files
• Configure logback.xml
• Configure phixflow-login.xml

DEV-2087, DEV-7214  Previously when configuring a datasource, there was a fixed list of available driver classes. The preconfigured driver classes for MariaDB, Oracle and Microsoft (MS) SQL Server are still available and are flagged to indicate they are read-only.  Administrators can now configure PhixFlow to use JDBC database driver files by configuring Driver Classes. This means PhixFlow can be configured to support additional types of database, or different versions of the same database; see Driver Classes. For MYSQL databases, you can either set up your own JDBC drivers and associated driver class or use the preconfigured MariaDB driver.

DEV-7215 In the System Configuration you can now specify a Driver Class File Directory. Use this location to store database driver jar files.  When you configure a driver class, the specified Driver Class File → Connector Jar File Location must refer to a jar file saved to the Driver Class File Directory or sub-directory.

DEV-7342  On startup, PhixFlow now checks that only one password mechanism has been set for the keystore file in phixflow-secret.xml; see Configure a Keystore for Database Credentials. 

• Either use keystorePassEnvironmentVariable to refer to an environment variable containing the password (recommended)
• or use keystorepass to record the password directly. 

Bug Fixes

In addition to minor fixes and improvements error messages, the following issues have been fixed in this release.

Models

DEV-6043  When saving a stream, the model no longer briefly disappears.

DEV-6177  The Percent aggregate function now returns the correct values in a stream view. This error only occured in SQL Server and MariaDB databases.

DEV-6501  PhixFlow recognises date and date-time formats, but does not recognise time-only formats, for example HH:mm:ss. When a database collector loads time data, it now applies the string data-type. Previously, PhixFlow failed to read time data. This applies to MariaDB and SQL Server databases as there is no TIME data-type in Oracle DB.

DEV-6508  A file collector with a password configured will now load a password-protected file.

DEV-5993  If you reorder stream attributes in a list, the changes are now correctly reflected in any open attribute properties tab.

DEV-6761  HTTP datasource properties are correctly updated when you save them. In previous versions, the properties could be cached until the Tomcat web server was restarted.  
Also, HTTP and database exporters can only export to a datasource that has the Enabled check box ticked.

DEV-6777  The modelling object context menu no longer contains the Export Object option.

DEV-6824  Changing a directed pull pipe to a lookup pipe now automatically changes the Advanced → Strategy to default.

DEV-6767  In an HTTP collector, looking up a value in a HTTP header now correctly evaluates each value.

DEV-5634  An FTP file collector can now correctly access files on a Windows File Server.

DEV-7308  It is now quicker to open the stream properties, where the stream has a large numbers of actions.

DEV-7441  Exporting an Excel file using a template now correctly exports all records, even if longtext fields are very long.

Applications

General

DEV-6303  The paging bar now collapses into 2 rows if there is not enough space to fit all its elements in a single row.

DEV-6502  If a stream view contains a record with no data, any form that is being driven by the stream view is now correctly displayed with empty fields. Previously, the form continued to display data from the previously selected record.

DEV-6582  A user can load any application that they can use. However, in previous versions, if the user does not have the permission to run any of the menu options, the default menu action would not run.  This has been fixed and the default menu action will now run for any user.

DEV-6648, DEV-6693  In applications, drop-down lists will now correctly list options. Previously, lists were sometimes affected by incorrect background filtering.

DEV-7079   PhixFlow now indicates that you cannot drag a colour map entry to reorder it in the list, instead of allowing the drag but not reordering the colour map entries.

DEV-7552  Fixed an issue with card containers that have:

• an expression related to a context parameter
  
• and a formatting rule
• and a context parameter that requires a redraw.  

When an action updates the context parameter, PhixFlow now correctly refreshes the formatting rule and redraws the card container.

Layouts and Dashboards

DEV-6436  Closing a dashboard now correctly switches focus to another open dashboard.

DEV-6613  In layouts, the drop-down components on cards now correctly update the card's underlying stream item.

DEV-6812  Resolved an issue with grid-dependencies that was preventing dashboard refresh. 

DEV-7114   Improved closing of drop-down lists in a form field or grid.

DEV-7181  In a locked dashboard, split bars between dashboard panes have been changed to have no height. This means the panes are no longer divided by white bars.

Styles

DEV-5842  Stream items (data records) that are updated by changes on another grid no longer lose their styling.

DEV-6895  In the repository, dragging formatting rules to resequence them now works correctly. Previously, the rules were moving to the end of the list.

DEV-7186  When you use layout properties → Style Settings section →  Add a style, PhixFlow correctly sets the Container name for the new style to match the container of the layout component.

Actions

DEV-6441  When you add an action to a grid attribute, PhixFlow now correctly refreshes the grid. 

DEV-6491  On the Drop Target properties tab, very long lists of stream actions caused PhixFlow to run out of memory. Long stream action lists now correctly load into the properties tab.

DEV-5858  The audit trail for menu items is now correctly displayed in the menu properties tab.

DEV-7486  The audit trail for stream actions now includes changes to all properties.

DEV-6602  Stream actions with Record sets as context parameters will no longer cause a type conversion error upon running another action.

DEV-6833  Action confirmation messages now work correctly with HTML formatting. Additionally, PhixFlow notifies you if a message includes an unsupported function.

DEV-6099  If PhixFlow loses connection to the network when an action is running, the action in progress notification will no longer continue indefinitely. Instead PhixFlow will display a notification to inform the user about the error.

DEV-7148   Fixed an issue that affected PhixFlow running on an Oracle database. An action no longer updates an incorrect dataset when the action has a background filter rule with an empty expression.

DEV-7338  In Styles, you can now specify custom CSS values such 5em or 20px. The css calc function now correctly calculates the values. Remember to include the units, for example calc(100% - 20px).

Common Features

DEV-7075  In PhixFlow property tabs, drop-down lists now display in the correct location, rather than sometimes appearing at the top of tab.

DEV-6317  In the repository, right-clicking on an application to open it in a new tab or window no longer adds the application menu name to the repository filter.

DEV-6135  PhixFlow no longer incorrectly applies a filter after you start to enter a column filter, but close the window without applying the filter. Previously, PhixFlow would apply the aborted filter when the grid was refreshed.

DEV-6350  To improve usability, you can only drag a stream into a new task after it has been saved. In previous versions, the dragging a stream into an unsaved task would fail. Also, if you drag an item into a properties tab and the drag fails, you no longer have to refresh the browser window containing PhixFlow. This could happen in a new properties tab that had never been saved.

DEV-6192  Updates to date style mapping will now take effect immediately. Previously, changes only became visible after a stream view was edited or Tomcat was restarted.

DEV-6741  When you drag a grid column header onto a form it is possible to click OK without matching the column header to a stream attribute. If this happens, Phixflow looks in the backing stream for an attribute with the same name as the column header. Previously PhixFlow used the first stream attribute.

DEV-6466  You can drag a grid column header onto a dashboard area to apply a filter on the data displayed. For example, you can use this type of filter so that, when a user clicks on a row of the grid, the details of that record are displayed in a form. Filters created using this method now work for all users by default. Previously, user permissions could prevent the filter from working.

DEV-6471  In previous versions, if you made changes to the data in a grid, and then clicked the grid's  Refresh button, PhixFlow would automatically run autosave if it was enabled. This meant that changes that you wanted to discard were saved instead. This has now been fixed. PhixFlow will notify you that any data changes in the grid will be discarded by the refresh.

DEV-6593  If chart data has an undefined label, this will now be included in chart legend as "Null".

DEV-6679  Grids in property tabs no longer have the option to ignore case as it was causing an error.

DEV-6706  If you drag something into an unsaved property tab, PhixFlow now prompts you to "...save before dropping items here".

DEV-6591  In grids, the check box to select all rows no longer  sometimes starts with all rows ticked. 

DEV-6779  The console window now opens on top of any open dashboards, even those with Always on Top set.

DEV-6562  If you select a locale that has no language configuration, PhixFlow will continue to load properly. The PhixFlow interface will continue to be presented in English.

DEV-6778  Updating a filter name in the stream properties now correctly applies the change to all the dashboard elements to which it applies.

DEV-6821  When a parent object is deleted, child objects are also deleted, even if they are marked as Protect during import. This prevents orphaned objects. This affects:

• filters when their parent stream is deleted
• datasources when their parent application is deleted.

DEV-6783  Hiding the Help tab now works correctly without reporting an error.

DEV-6874  HTML fields in property tabs correctly set the property tab to orange when edited.

DEV-6994  When you update your password on the User Details window, click Apply and then click Save, PhixFlow will not display the incorrect message that "Your password must be different ..." from previous passwords.

DEV-7097  _current now works correctly when used to refer to an individual card in the CSS properties of the card.

DEV-7101  The paging bar correctly reflects the number of records in the grid, rather than showing the number of filters displayed in the drop-down filter list.

Administration

DEV-7247, DEV-7263, DEV-6454    There have been various improvements to managing stream sets.

• If a stream-data-delete task is cancelled when in progress, the partially deleted stream sets will not be marked as deleted. The stream sets will be fully deleted on the next run. Only those stream sets that have been deleted will be marked as deleted.
• If an archive filter is applied but all records have been archived, the stream set will now be correctly marked as archived.
• It is no longer possible to archive data to a file.
• Performance for stream-data-delete tasks has been improved, especially for self-updating streams.
• Stream-data-delete tasks respond more quickly to cancellation.

DEV-7133  Importing a rollback task no longer fails.

DEV-4699, DEV-7445  Although you can enter a mixed-case user name in the User properties → Login Name or during a password reset, PhixFlow treats the username as case-independent.

DEV-6600  The user group property tab now only displays roles, stream actions and applications that you have permission to see.

DEV-7364  In the repository, user accounts are now listed by their domain.  You can change users between local and mixed, either by changing the User property → Domain or by dragging the username to/from the local list of users; see User. 

DEV-6601  You can now drag a user group from the repository into an application properties Access Permissions section.

DEV-6406  Configuring a login message has been simplified. Rather than specifying a file location, you now enter the message text directly into System Configuration → Home Screen Message HTML; see Configuring a Login Message.

DEV-6561  When an administrator is setting up users, PhixFlow no longer uses their details to incorrectly autofill fields in User properties. This only occured on some versions of Google Chrome.

DEV-6808  In the User properties → User Group section,  the filter works correctly in the grid of user groups.

DEV-3592  For SAML, Active Directory or LDAP user login, PhixFlow only attempts to login using the specified domain. Previously, if login via the specified domain failed, PhixFlow would attempt to login via any available domain.

DEV-6910  Dragging a list of user groups into another list of user groups will no longer fail. This can occur after an unrelated change to the access permissions of another object.

DEV-7431  Resolved an issue in which roles could sometimes be listed in the repository for users without the required privileges.

DEV-7402  PhixFlow can create database views on streams. Administrators can now configure which database role can access the database views; see System Configuration -> Database View Role and Configuring Access to Database Views.

DEV-7317  The web application no longer generates multiple warnings in the log files catalina.out and dev.log for a deprecated feature.

DEV-7275, DEV-7436, DEV-7339  PhixFlow now correctly audits changes to:

• application permissions and user groups
• passwords using a reset request
• stream attribute length.

DEV-7283  Audit messages for changes to image files are now correctly displayed.

DEV-7449 The Audit Summary section of System Logging now correctly records any changes to settings.

DEV-7343  PhixFlow now correctly closes phixflow-secret.xml after accessing it.

DEV-7537  PhixFlow now requests confirmation when you want to move items in the repository into or out of applications and packages.