Improvements

The left navigation panel has been revised to be easier to use with less clicks and more flexibility.

• If the navigation panel is collapsed, users can hover over an icon to automatically expand the navigation panel and click the content to display, whereby the navigation panel will automatically collapse again.
• If the left navigation panel is reduced in width and the window is resized, the width of the navigation panel will return to its previous width once the window is returned to its original size.
• The left navigation panel can be expanded to a maximum of 30 - 40 % of the overall windows size.

The legend for matrix reports has been improved and now shows the object class icon and class name for the elements on the X- and Y-axes and in the matrix cells.

For configured reports that require mandatory filter to be set to show data, the filter panel will be automatically opened if the Execute on Enter attribute is set to False for the configured report. Please note the limitation that if the configured report is embedded in a content area, the filter panel will not open but instead a message is shown asking the user to set the filter.

Visualizations like business graphics displayed in the context of a data workbench will display a maximum of 50 objects to avoid the rendering of visualizations that are not readable or performative. If the visualization is based on more than 50 objects, a message will be displayed above the graphic informing the user that only the first 50 objects are displayed. It is advised that filters are set in the data workbench to reduce the number of objects to a readable amount for the visualization.

• If a user shares a content item with another user, the recipient will receive a notification about the new shared content.

• The Add Content to Page functionality in the 3-dots menu of a content area has been renamed Manage Content on Page to reflect that content can be removed from the content area as well as added to the content area.

The title and graphic are both displayed on the first page of the PDF when diagrams, matrices, and Gantt charts are exported to PDF in landscape format.

All object classes are displayed in the drop-down list in the orange New button in the masthead and the more link is no longer displayed.

If indicators are defined with a unit, the unit will automatically be displayed in parenthesis behind the indicator name in the column headers, Structure menu, and Business Chart Settings available for data workbenches as well as the standard Evaluation (ObjectEvaluation) view.

The Compute Indicators functionality in the standard Evaluations view (ObjectEvaluation) has been moved out of the 3-dots menu and is displayed directly in the toolbar of the view to make it easier for users to trigger indicator calculation.

The Rescan Indicators button will not be displayed in data workbenches if no computed indicators have been defined for the object class.

Administrative users can configure role types, cost types, and evaluation types for principles. The object class Principle has been added to the Class Configuration functionality.

If a component is imported from IT-Pedia® in the Components page that is available in an application’s content area, the component will be imported and a corresponding local component will be created for the application. The reference between the local component, component, and application will be automatically created.

The performance of standard views and configured reports for user administration has been considerably improved so that the restriction to show only 300 users was removed from the standard Users Administration view. This addresses the customer request in ticket SI-571309.

The Reports view (SRCH_REPORTS) has been enhanced so that users can easily navigate to a configured report listed in the dataset. A new navigation arrow is available for each configured report so that users can click the arrow to open the configured report.

Survey classes can be selected as a target class when specifying a data quality rule.

To manage these scheduled jobs that run into a deadlock and aren’t executed, new options have been added to the Action button in the Job Schedule view to view locked jobs and reschedule them.

Selecting documents for ADIF jobs and data capture templates has been revised so that it is easier to select documents in the editor.

The Alfabet online help has been moved to another server and changed in structure to provide the following additional features:

• The Help Server setting in the server alias configuration can be set in two different ways:
  • https://documentation.alfabet.com: This links to the help of the latest Alfabet release. It will currently link to Alfabet 11.8 and will automatically link to the next documentation set when a new release comes out. Customers frequently updating to the newest release can use this link to avoid the need to redefine the link with every release
  • https://documentation.alfabet.com/11-8: This links to the Alfabet 11.8 help and will explicitly open only the online help of Alfabet 11.8. Update to a future release requires an update of the Help Server setting in the server alias configuration.
  • Existing settings to the former web server will be re-directed for a limited time. Customers using older versions of Alfabet 11 should update the link in the Help Server setting in the server alias configuration to the new server to the help version they use.
• A full-text search field is available directly on the website for the online help for Alfabet 11.8.
• A version picker provides access to prior versions of the Alfabet online help for Alfabet 11.3 - 11.7, and to the PDF files published for Alfabet 10.9 - 10.15.
• Images for the context-sensitive and full-text help displayed in the Alfabet user interface are directly read from the online help server. They are no longer read from the documentation icon gallery which will be removed from the database during update to Alfabet 11.8.
• Continuous delivery will be provided for the online help starting with Alfabet 11.8. Help content will be updated as soon as new content is available. The start page of the online help will provide information about updates.

The configuration capabilities for button availability and captions for buttons have been re-worked to provide solution designers with more flexibility.

• A new Content Areas section is available in the attributes of user profiles in Alfabet Expand. The attributes enable the solution designer to specify if and how users may change the content displayed in all content areas relevant for the user profile.
• A Content Areas section is available for class settings that allows content areas to be changed for a class setting. The user profile configuration will override the class setting configurations.
• The properties available in a property group in content areas can be changed in the Properties node of the class settings. The order of the properties displayed can then be changed for a content area under the Content Areas node. The solution designer can also modify the caption of all properties including the ones moved to the property group via the class settings.
• The availability of buttons and filter fields in configured reports can be specified in the Reports node in the class settings. Report captions and descriptions can also be modified.
• The availability of buttons and filter fields of standard page views can be changed in the Graphic View node in the class settings. View captions and descriptions can also be modified.
• The availability of buttons and fields can be changed for standard editors in the Editors node and for custom editors in the Custom Editors node of the class settings. In addition, the editor caption can be adapted.
• The accessibility and caption of generic operations can be changed in the Class Operations node of class settings. Visibility conditions can be defined for the operations. Button definitions for presentation objects have been moved to the Presentation Objects node. These buttons are displayed in standard views and business functions. Data workbenches show buttons defined as class operations, while content areas show both the generic operations as well as any button defined for an associated object profile.
• Two new class operations have been added to the generic operations of the BusinessDataUsage object class to define business data usage for applications and business objects. These operations are shown only when a data workbench for the BusinessDataUsage object class is embedded in the content area of the Application or BusinessObject context classes.
• Generic create, edit, and delete operations are now available for all relevant classes.
• Dynamic buttons derived from code can be deactivated or marked as customized directly in the user interface. The Alfabet Web Application needs to be started in design mode to add the option to configure buttons to each view. After buttons have been marked as customized, a node for the button is added under the Presentation Objects node of the relevant class settings and customization can be carried out directly in the class settings.

Class-based content areas can be configured to return data for a defined object returned by a query. For example, the query could create content areas returning data about the current user. A new Base Object By Query attribute has been added to content areas. The query defined in this attribute must return a single object.

The object class NotificationMonitor has been added to the class model in the Meta-Model tab in Alfabet Expand. Solution designers can build data workbenches and class-based content areas for notification monitors and include them in queries.

The automatic migration of Alfabet 10.15.x to Alfabet 11 has been changed for Alfabet 11.8:

• In Alfabet 11.7.2, the migration scripts were amended with the ability to take over view customizations from view schemes to class settings.
• In Alfabet 11.8, the customization of views in the class settings has been completely revised and the automated migration has been changed accordingly.

The update of the meta-model via the AMM file has been changed to include these migration steps for all customers currently migrating from Alfabet 10.15.x or for customers who have already migrated an Alfabet 10.15.x configuration to Alfabet 11.7.x using the automated migration scripts:

• The Execute configuration migration scripts checkbox has been added to the Update Meta-Model dialog. The checkbox must be selected to execute automatic migration scripts. It is only displayed for:
  • Update from Alfabet 10.15.x to Alfabet 11.8 to execute the complete automatic migration including the scripts implemented in Alfabet 11.7.2 and Alfabet 11.8.
  • Update from Alfabet 11.7.1 to Alfabet 11.7.2 to execute only the new automatic migration of view customizations from view schemes to class settings introduced with Alfabet 11.7.2.
  • Update from Alfabet 11.7.2 to Alfabet 11.8 to adapt the class settings to the new configuration infrastructure for view customizations.
• Customers who have migrated from Alfabet 10.15.x to Alfabet 11.7.0 or earlier Alfabet 11 versions and used the option to automatically change the existing configuration are advised to first update to Alfabet 11.7.1, then to Alfabet 11.7.2, and then to Alfabet 11.8 to make sure all new migration features are implemented.

When using the AlfaAdministratorConsole.exe command line tool for database archive, restore, or update of the meta-model or workflow-related tasks, login is possible with Alfabet username and password as an alternative to the existing option to log in with database username and password. This addresses the customer request in ticket SI-569338 and SI-569424

During update of the meta-model, issues with configuration objects are written to a Microsoft® Excel® file. Messages that do not require any check about whether a manual correction is required have been removed. This includes warnings about merged icons and property group migration.

Data can be taken over from OAuth authentication providers like OKTA. The mapping can be specified in the XML object AuthConfiguration in an XML element Actualization including the mapping information in the format <AuthAttrMapping Name="external attribute name" TargetProperty="Alfabet object class property name" />.

If the data in ARIS is defined only in languages not available for the Alfabet user interface, data import to Alfabet can be configured to force import to the standard language in Alfabet from any of the languages used in ARIS. In the XML object ArisApiConfig , the XML attribute overwrite_primary_language_as="Java locale language and country" must be specified (for example, overwrite_primary_language_as="de_DE" for German).