This release is mostly dedicated to rule improvement, which will, in its turn, impact in the business logic of your application.

Unlimited IQL in Rules

Previously, the only IQL we could use in Rules manager was an action to set the value of fields, limited to the target table. This time, we bring a new action called “Run IQL”, an open editor where you will be able to freely type queries with endless possibilities in one go like in the example below, where you can create new Order records, defining parameters as variables to name these orders with their main order’s ID plus a consecutive number, and looping these new records to set the related Customer and mark them as Internal. It also resets the trigger condition. All you can come up with, in a single action. You can even call other rules within this editor.

Dry run rules

Here comes the Rule debug tool, a new functionality without precedent to analyze in real time and from any form how the rule execution in cascade is done after triggering any condition, and how long this takes; for example, once you toggle this tool in any application form, make some changes, save, and see what rule actions are executed and if they lead to errors, and their impact on performance. The best of it is that you can run it “dry”, meaning that all changes you made while debugging can be reversed.

Other improvements

File history

Currently, users have the “Show history in tooltip” option on all forms to be able to see when the value of a field was changed, and by whom. From this release on, we also implement a robust history for File fields where up to 100 versions of the file changed can be recovered and downloaded in case it’s needed. Note that this is only available for applications storing files on Amazon, and it will only work for files uploaded after this release is deployed.

Improvements to Multi-value component

Multiple file uploading: Use the Multi-value component linked to a File field to be able to upload multiple documents and pictures at once. Just click, browse and select! Or, even more practical, drop the files directly from your explorer.

More than Record name: Both the Selector and field type Relation have the possibility to display up to 3 fields, including or not the Record name. We have also added this feature to the Multi-value component placed on Detail and Multi detail sections, so users can see more than an ID in a snap.

Run an action on click: Just like buttons and icons, this component can now be used to run some actions; for example, you could make it open a form depending on the related record you clicked on, or make it display a hidden section in the form.

Save all button for mobile and desktop forms

Most of our users love the Save floating icon in mobile mode forms; for those who doesn’t, now it’s an optional setting that the administrator must disable or enable. Also, if this new setting is on, it will benefit desktop mode forms, displaying a button at the Title bar to save all changes at once, regardless of the type and data source of sections.

Charts with customizable color

Before, bars and lines of graphs could be colored at some extent, but thanks to an improvement in our IQL chart, it is possible to have the color changing depending on the value of the y-series field.

Exportable Chart type Table

Just like other sections in forms can be exported to Excel, we have added this functionality for Table charts.

Standard Date time patterns

As you may have noticed, the format of the Date and Date time fields you see in forms is usually displayed based on your locale. To continue developing advanced functions applied on dates, the list of supported Date time patterns has been updated and standardized with the user locale as well.

Bugs fixed

Regarding Table section (TS):

• Pasting from an Excel file into a TS sometimes caused that Text and Note fields ended up with a modified string.
• TS rendered empty due to an exception caused by a Relation field limited by another Relation.
• An error message was displayed after double-clicking a Multi-value field while creating a record in TS.
• Meter components in TS could not displayed color/background set in Form designer in combination with a Style rule.
• Clicking on a centered Checkbox placed in TS made it difficult to click it due to the alignment.

Regarding Repeater:

• This component showed the Create new icon enabled despite being limited by a section with no record selected.
• It was not possible to have a custom Button component for record creation in the Repeater.
• Mandatory fields were cleared after saving a record for the first time in this component.

Others:

• In DME, the selected columns by the user made an automatic refresh after Description was added to any field.
• The Configuration bundles included logs without creation date in the Forms tab after applying a filter for Today’s date.
• The Excel button in Form rights was exporting data without taking in consideration the filters applied on the form.
• When using a Send a mail in Rules configuration, the Select recipients window failed after removing and adding recipients at the same time.
• The Gantt component had the Save button enabled despite some saving was still being performed for multiple records. After this fix, it remains disabled until save is committed.
• The caption of Repeater component was hidden when collapsing it in mobile mode.
• Notifications could not display Date and Date time fields embedded in the text message.
• In Rules, the functions hasRole and userHasRole did not check access rights via forms and imports.
• File fields were difficult to upload in case there was a previous file attached as users clicked on the link instead of the upload icon.

Other changes for administrators

Rules monitor

This is a new system tool with graphs and statistics that helps administrators analyze the impact of scheduled rules in their applications, by displaying the number of records triggered per rule, the number of rules running per hour and per day, the total execution time consumed hourly and the top 20 rules consuming most of that time. With this information, administrators can take decisions on what to modify in their application’s logic configuration to improve the performance.

Rule execution warnings

The Rules manager has been enhanced with a new column with detailed information regarding issues encountered while running rules. For example, it informs you when a record couldn’t be created due to name duplication or lack of Record group; or that a value had to be truncated in a Note field because the text was too long.

Rules in default language

Besides the Rules manager, you can find references about rules in Export to Excel and Field usage report. For administration purposes, we have made sure that the names of rules are always displayed in the application’s default language.

Automatic stop for Scheduled rules

Sometimes, scheduled rules may take a long time to be executed, overloading the server resources. To prevent that, there is a threshold for execution time. If exceeded, the rules will be stopped, and the server and application administrators will be notified.

Export of rules

The new Rules manager, recently released in our previous version, now has an Export tool with two options: Excel or CSV.

Multiple deletion of rules

Select all the rules you want and delete them at once. A confirmation message will pop up for you to approve.

Multiple activation of rules

There is a new button called More actions in Rules manager, useful to activate or deactivate the rules you have selected. You can also run an export to Excel from here. Finally, after the successful implementation of the new Rules manager in our previous release, the old Rules wizard and manager, and the Rule sets will be removed from all applications.

Improvements to API

Now it is possible to upload Excel files to the Import queue. Also, Record ID has been added to the datalog for tables after creation, update and deletion of records.

Improvement to Configuration bundles

To provide relevant information about the application elements being exported via the Configuration bundles tool, the following metadata have been included in the log file: appid, appname, cts, creator, cuserid, version and instance.

Record selector limitation properties

The settings Limit by and Limitation field are now part of the Selector properties in Form designer. This opens new possibilities of design for use cases where the user must select a record from a list of them, but the Relation field or the Table section does not meet the desired layout.

Optional keyboard shortcuts in forms

To avoid the effect of key bindings on application forms (e.g. Alt + s, to save), click on the new “Disable keyboard shortcuts” property in Form designer. This is particularly useful when the form has a Button component that is enabled only under certain conditions, which the shortcuts will bypass.

Date range selector interval in Charts

Use this new property in Form designer to set your Chart’s Date range selector to a default time interval, e.g., the current week, month, year, previous year, etc.

Notice of planned future changes

After the introduction of the new PDF generator last year, we have decided to remove the old generator, i.e., the “Action: Export to PDF” in Form designer will no longer be available.