Improvements

To make it easy for users to destinguish between own and shared favorites, a standard Alfabet Shared Favorites folder is now available for shared favorites. The folder is only visible if at least one favorite is shared. On migration to Alfabet 11.9.0, all already existing shared favorites will be moved automatically to this folder for all users.

• When the user selects an option from the search results, the search field is no longer emptied but the selection made by the user will still be visible for reference.
• The search field is hidden if searchability has been disabled for all object classes. This is a resolution for ticket ASD-6401.

If no help link is defined in the server alias of the Alfabet Web Application the search button will be hidden completely instead of showing unavailability messages.

When a user deleted a content item in the My Content Items view, it was still persistent in content pages it has been added to and only removed when hidden. This behavior has been changed, and the content item is immediately removed from all content pages when deleted. This is a resolution for ticket ASD-498.

In Alfabet 11.8, the way content areas were configured was complex, with different versions of content areas being stored on different level of configuration. The content of the content area was defined in Alfabet Expand while the layout was done in an administrative user profile in the Alfabet user interface. That configuration was then stored as default view. When a user opened the content area, the way the content area was rendered depended on three configurations. If the user had changed the configuration, the user's configuration was used. If the user did not change the configuration, the default configuration done by the administrative user was used. If neither a user configuration nor a default configuration was available, the configuration in Alfabet Expand was used.

This method also caused issues when merging the configurations. When a configuration was changed, the user was informed about it and needed to actively reload the default configuration, thus overwriting the user configuration and reverting the content page to default.

This approach is substituted with a new method with enhanced usability for both the solution designer and the end user. The content areas are easier to configure, and users experience an improved merging behavior between the configuration in Alfabet Expand and the configuration of the user.

• Solution designers can create pages, add content items, and arrange these content items in a content area designer accessible from Alfabet Expand. The content area designer is based on a private user profile which need to be assigned to a user with access to Alfabet Expand to access the content area designer. The configuration done by the solution designer in the web-based content area designer directly changes the configuration stored in Alfabet Expand 
• If a solution designer changes an already existing and used content area either directly in Alfabet Expand or in the content area designer, all changes are directly merged to the individual user's configuration without reverting changes done by the user. New content items are added as last elements to the content page without removing content items added by the user or changing re-ordering of the existing pages performed by the user. New content items and new content pages are marked with a dot in the upper right corner the first time the user accesses the changed content area. If content items or content pages are removed in Alfabet Expand, they are also removed from the content areas changed by the users without affecting the rest of the user configuration.

On migration from Alfabet 11.8 to Alfabet 11.9, the default configuration for the content area will overwrite the configuration in Alfabet Expand. The default configuration is the last configuration effort done by the solution designer and is therefore regarded as the final version of the content area. Content available in Alfabet Expand but hidden from the default configuration will still persist in Alfabet Expand. A new Default Visibility attribute is introduced to inform the solution designer whether the content was hidden or visible in the Alfabet 11.8 default configuration. The attribute can be used any time to hide default content from the content area. The content will then be available via the content repository only.

The way users can access guided data views in the Alfabet user interface has been enhanced:

• Solution designers can configure in class settings whether the guided data entry view or the content area opens on navigation to an object. Users can then switch between the Analysis View, which is the content area, and the Data Entry View, which is the guided data entry view, via a toggle button. In addition, the Edit button can be hidden from the content area via an attribute in the class settings to provide the Data Entry View instead of the editor.
• Guided data entries can be added to a workflow step.
  • For workflow steps about an existing object, the guided data entry can be added as view to open. If a user shall be able to switch from the data entry view to a content area via a toggle button, the content area needs to be defined as additional target in the workflow step. The workflow step content area pages are available via tabs of the guided data view.
  • For workflow steps for creating a new object, the guided data view can be defined as additional target for the editor assigned to the workflow step. The user can then switch to the guided data view after having created the new object in the editor.
• On automatic refresh due to inline editing of a guided data view the user currently working with the view is scrolled back to the content item the user was working with prior to refresh.

For default content added to the content repository via the System Content Repository subnode of class settings solution designers can define whether the content shall be available in the content repository for all content areas, in a defined content area only, or for a defined content page in the specified content area only.

Business functions can be added as content items to content areas. A preview icon or preview report must be defined for the business function content item as rendering of the complete business function in the content area is not supported.

The drop-down lists for reference properties and string properties can be defined via a query. This method has been enhanced:

The collapse and expand behavior of levels in hierarchical data workbenches has been improved:

• Hierarchical data workbenches only show an expand icon if the level contains sub-objects and can be expanded.
• If a user opens a panel, for example using the Structure button, after having expanded a level of the hierarchical data workbench, the expanded level stays expanded.

For on-prem customers having configured the Alfabet meta-model to provide object data translation capabilities, language specific capturing of object data has been re-implemented with enhanced usability in Alfabet 11.9. Users can capture the data directly in the language they have currently selected to render the user interface. The data will be included in the database table of the object class in the column for the respective language. If data already exists in the primary language, the value of the original value will be displayed in the respective field in data workbenches, content areas, and editors as a placeholder text which can optionally be overwritten with the language version by the user. When new objects are created, the primary key data or mandatory data specified for the object will be written to the database columns for both the primary language and the current language.

For the new way of managing translations, the XML attribute EnableTranslationToPrimaryLanguage in the SolutionOptions XML object is deprecated and not evaluated any longer. The Capture Translations in Language of User Interface is also not used any longer and has not been re-established.

Data Quality Rules and Data Triggered Actions will currently not work yet for multilanguage data captures.

Handling of attribute setting in Alfabet Expand has been improved:

• Copy and paste of class operation adaptations from one class setting for an object class to another class setting for the same object class has been enhanced to enable copy and paste for single class operation modifications. This is a resolution for ticket ASD-6076.
• The drop-down list for selecting a graphic view target in a menu item of a user profile has been reduced to show only views which do not require a base object and can be added meaningfully to a left-hand navigation.
• When a button overwrite is created under the Presentation tab in the class settings, the Caption attribute is filled in automatically with the standard caption of the button. Thus, making it easy to identify the button if the technical name does not correspond to the button functionality. This is a resolution for ticket ASD-6009.
• When a new class setting was created, the Editor Type attribute was set to undefined . The default setting for an undefined editor type was SimpleEditor , which is one of the existing options to set the editor type. To make the default behavior directly visible, the Editor Type for new class settings is now directly set to SimpleEditor . On upgrade to Alfabet 11.9.0, all undefined settings for the editor type in existing class settings will be changed to SimpleEditor.
• Marking of mandatory properties in the meta-model tab of Alfabet Expand has been adapted to the new concept in Alfabet 11 versions to regard only object class properties defined as unique key or which have a strict NULL handling as mandatory. All other checks whether data is correctly provided have been moved to data quality rules. Please note that this will also change the display of mandatory properties in newly created data capture templates. For existing data capture templates, the changes are not applied to ensure the integrity of data import and export. This is a resolution of ASD-5790.
• The Review Selector functionality has been re-implemented. This is a resolution for ticket ASD-6332.

In data capture templates, the definition of roles can be limited to include users with a defined stereotype only. For example, you can exclude users with the stereotype Contact as role owner. To exclude a stereotype of the object class PERSON from the Role Type tab of a class-based data capture template, the new Enable for Data Capture Templates attribute in the class settings must be set to False for the class settings of that stereotype. Please note that the new attribute is not related to the Enable for Data Capture Templates attribute on the object class level. It is exclusively removing the object class stereotype from the Role Type tab of data capture templates of any object class while it is still possible to define a data capture template for the object class stereotype itself. Setting of this attribute in class settings of other object classes or stereotypes thereof has no effect.

In prior releases, it was not possible to import IT policy architecture objects of the type IsAffected via data capture templates. The Type object class property was completely managed by code. On import via data capture templates the type of the IT policy architecture objects was always set to the default Implements value. The Type object class property is now enabled for data capture templates with an inbuild restriction to set the value to one of the two allowed values only.

Under the Editor subnode of class settings solution designers can now adapt the availability and editability of fields in private editors for a user profile.

For configured reports displaying a gantt chart or a tabular dataset, enumeration styling can be defined via the new Alfabet instruction ShowEnumeration(ColumnName, EnumerationName, icon:bool, color:bool); . If icon:bool is set to icon:true then the icon defined in the enumeration is shown. If color:bool is defined ascolor:true then the coloring defined for the enumeration is taken over to display the value. Styling is done via style groups if defined in the enumeration.

The Access in User Interface attribute has been set to ReadOnly for several object class properties of the DataQualityRule object class. the properties are calculated by code and shall not be set by users.

An XML object specified with server variables was only valid if all server variables defined in the XML object were set in the server alias of the Alfabet Web Application. For XML objects including multiple integration connections, like the XML object GenericAPIIntegrationConfig, this led to error messages about missing server variables for all integration solutions in case the values for server variables for one integration solution were not set. This behavior has been changed to enable activation of a sub-set of configured integration solutions only. The server variables need still to be available for all integrations to work, but no value need to be specified for them. If no values are specified for the server variables used in one integration solution specification, all other integration solution specifications will still work and the integration solution with missing values will show error messages about data not being available instead of informing end users about server variable issues.

If an existing alfabetms.xml configuration file is re-used from an Alfabet 10.15.x installation, remote server alias configurations existing in the file will not be available any longer via the explorer in the Alfabet Administrator.

Alfabet 11.9 uses SQL server connection pooling for connections to the database server. With connection pooling, opening and closing a connection is no longer required for each database request, but all requests are handed over to a pool of persistent connections. Two new fields have been added to the Database Settings tab of the server alias configuration to change the minimum and maximum number of concurrent connections allowed in the connection pool. The default values provide optimum connection pool usage in most environments.

The AMM editor has been changed to remove deprecated content and provide a better usability for customers.

• The Guide Pages tab has been removed from the AMM file editor because guide pages are no longer supported.
• The default value for the Include Configuration Name and Version checkbox has been changed from true to false.
• User interface themes can be added to AMM files in the Reference Data tab and merged into the user interface theme configuration. When a user interface theme is added to an AMM file, all styles which are changed in the user interface theme are also added to the AMM file. When the configuration in the AMM file is merged in the configuration of the target database, all styles and themes which do not exist in the target database will be added and styles and themes also available in the target database will be overwritten. Styles are overwritten on the level of the style. If a style group is available in both databases and has different styles, only the styles which are available in the AMM file will be overwritten.
• Categorized visual items are included in AMM files via the Save Configuration option. They can also be selected via the Find Meta-Model Objects for Deployment functionality.
• Content area default configurations are no longer used and have been removed from the content that can be added to AMM files.

Client credential call can be used for calls to the endpoint token of the Alfabet RESTful services. The body of the request must then be defined as: grant_type=client_credentials&client_id=youralfabetRESTusername&client_secret=youralfabetRESTuserAPIpassword. This is a resolution for ticket ASD-6159.