Cora SeQuence 9.1 Release Notes

26 SEPTEMBER 2019

Welcome to Cora SeQuence Release Notes.

As they become available, additions and updates to these release notes can be found here.
The latest releases appear at the top of the list.

What's in the Release Notes?

• About Cora SeQuence
• What's new in Cora SeQuence V9.1
• New features
• Enhancements
• Breaking changes
• Resolved issues
• Known issues
• Installation
• Upgrade

About Cora SeQuence

Cora SeQuence is an Intelligent Business Process Management Suite (iBPMS) that facilitates rapid build and change of high availability, mobile-enabled workflow applications. Cora SeQuence is built on the HotChange^® technology, an architecture used for software development in the field of Business Process Management (BPM). HotChange^® enables consultation in the field of design, development, implementation and integration of information technology solutions for business processes. Business users and developers can seamlessly design and execute workflows on a single canvas using Dual View. Cora SeQuence is a low-code platform that also supports advanced development capabilities.

What's new in Cora SeQuence V9.1

V9.1 enables faster and more efficient deployment processes. You can set up a central location using a PowerShell function to share all workflow related resources, such as images, CSSs, and JS, with all application sites. Expedite system configuration and customization by setting up a central configuration location where you can edit configuration files in one location and automatically apply the changes to all applications.

This release also introduces improved governance, monitoring, and security, by allowing you to protect workflows with digital certificates.

In addition, we have started a long-term initiative to improve the system front-end application. Flowtime improvements provide easier and faster user experience and leverages the portal behavior to the latest usability and user interface industry trends.

IDEA BOARD Thank you for posting your ideas at the Ideas for Cora SeQuence site. We've been listening! The following ideas have been added to the product in this release: Display data in the end user's time zone in Analytics reports. Add the ability to protect workflow as a signed file that cannot be changed.  When importing workflows, display the lookup table name next to its GUID.  You can post your ideas here.

New features

• Improved governance, monitoring, and security: You can protect your workflow with a digital certificate to verify the authenticity of the workflow. Signing a workflow is useful to ensure that the workflow is executed as it was originally designed, and that it cannot be modified.
  For more details, see this article.
• Expedite system configuration and customization: To expedite system configuration and customization, you can set up a folder to manage changes to configuration files from one central location. After you set up the central configuration folder, you need to move the supported configuration files to the new location, and then run a PowerShell function to map the main application configuration file to the new location.
  For more details, see this article. 
• Deploy a workflow once and automatically update all related resources: You can set up a shared folder to manage and share all external objects used in workflows, such as JavaScript files, Json files, CSS files, or images. The shared folder is a virtual directory that can be mapped to the Flowtime or Administration site applications. You run a PowerShell function to set up the virtual directory.
  For more details, see this article.
• Improved user experience: Several changes have been introduced to the Flowtime user interface.
  • The navigation menu can be collapsed/expanded.
  • Faster access to selected pages using submenus. 
  • New User Options menu that displays the user's profile picture or initials. 
  • Hot Operations:
    • The Hot Operations menu item has been removed. Team Members, Team Leaders, and Operations Managers access the relevant Hot Operations pages based on their user's role.
    • Easier access to relevant tasks: Team Members can now filter their tasks by team.
      To enable the Team filter, set up the following application variable: 

      Key	Value
      Portal.HotOperations.TeamMember.EnableGroupFilter	True/False

    • Notifications: Manual actions performed by the Team Leader and Hot Operations Manager are now displayed on a new notifications pop-up window. You can control whether notifications appear or not, and for how long it is displayed.

For more details on how to configure Flowtime, see this article.

Enhancements

• Analytics and Form Viewer now support the option to display datetime data according to end user's time zone.
• Workflow source control: An icon was added next to the workflow name to indicate that the workflow is checked out. You can hover over the icon to view who has checked out the workflow.
  indicates that the workflow was checked out by me.
  indicates that the workflow was checked out by someone else.
• Database performance: You can now set up separate connection strings for write/read components in the application's configuration file.
  For more details, see this article. 
• New status update procedure for instance activities: The status of all activities in the Closed activities table is now set to Completed. A new column has been added to the tbInstanceActivities table to describe the reason for closing the activity.  

  Column name	Value
  fldCompletionReason	0: Open 1: Closed due to activity completion 2: Closed due to workflow completion

• Connection string settings for stored procedures: You can set up a connection string to run a stored procedure on another SQL Server database.
  For details on setting up data models using stored procedures, see this article.
• Database performance improvements: You can now configure a database connection redirection to enable read-only queries.
• Hot Operations Process Wall—The following Hot Operations manual actions are now a part of the workflow execution, and are logged in the Process Wall: 
  • Reallocate cases 
  • Reassign tasks 
  • Reset assignment

• Performance counters: You can now configure a key to disable the performance counters.
  For details on setting up data models using stored procedures, see this article.
• Importing workflows: When you import a workflow that includes lookup tables (UTCMB), the list of workflow components now displays the alias of the lookup table next to its GUID.
• Lock workflow instance duration: You can lock a specific workflow instance during its execution to block concurrent execution of workflow instances, and prevent data discrepancy. You can configure lock duration by setting up the Lock Duration property in the App Studio, or adding instanceLockDuration property to the configuration file.
  For more details, see this article.

Breaking changes

• Workflow lock duration: with this release, the default workflow execution lock duration is 10 minutes. If an application executes a workflow instance, another application cannot execute that instance until the first execution completes. 
  For example, a workflow that includes a Web Service Consumer that consumes a Web Service Listener in the same workflow will fail because the instance is locked for the consumer's execution first. In such a scenario, the recommendation is to add a Goto activity to connect between the two activities. 
  For more details, see this article.
• New status update procedure for instance activities: If you use data from tblInstanceActivitiesClosed, note that the status values have been updated.
  For more details, see the description in the Enhancements section in this release notes.
• Flowtime menu and submenu changes: In case you have customized your portal, note that the menu structure and Hot Operations configuration have been changed. Following these changes, you need to reapply any customized configuration to the Default.config and HotOperations.config files.
  

• Team Leaders and Hot Operations Managers now need to have permissions on the solution's relevant workflows to perform actions in the Tasks List/Cases List pages. 

Customized portal considerations

If you've customized the Flowtime portal, after upgrading, you need to compare your customized files with the newly released product files, and if required, reapply any customization.

List of frequently changed file types: 

• Grid config files
• Menu config files
• Flowtime aspx files
• Workflow Explorer Configuration file

Resolved issues

Installation 

There are five pre-build application deployment packages available, depending on the type of application that you are deploying. You can install each Cora SeQuence application separately. 

When you deploy pre-built applications, you can choose between the Standard and Premium packages. The Premium package includes HotOperations.

If your implementation requires integration with CRM or SAP, contact the Support team. 

You can also build and deploy your own Cora SeQuence applications. 

For more details, see this article. 

Upgrade

Upgrading from V9.0.

1. Back up your Cora SeQuence database.
2. Back up your application packages.

3. Stop all Cora SeQuence applications.
4. Download and run the following DB scripts:
   • 01 - Objects.sql
   • 02 - Data.sql
   • 03 - Rename Old objects.sql
   • 04 - Migrate Activity Instances Data.sql
5. Download the updated SDK Tools package, and install it.
6. Do one of the following:
   • If your implementation includes customized applications, update the applications.
   • If your implementation uses the pre-built applications, download the latest application package. 
7. Replace the PoweShell modules on the target server with the updated ones.
8. Deploy Cora SeQuence applications.

Rollback steps 

1. Restore the Cora SeQuence database to its previous state.
2. Redeploy previous version of the Cora SeQuence applications.