We’re always looking for ways to improve our product so that we can help you be more efficient. The release of Novacura Flow 6.6 is no different. In this latest update, we’ve added lots of cool features to help you visualize data, automate tasks, and hopefully make your life easier overall. Here’s what you’ll find in Novacura Flow 6.6:
Branding Integration
Now you can really make Flow match your brand! Using the new Branding section in the Flow Studio, you can:
- Upload your own logotype (replacing the standard Novacura logotype)
- Set your own color scheme for things like banners, workflow colors, step headers and step buttons.
And you’re not limited to one color scheme either: you can define multiple color schemes and switch between them whenever you want to.
We hope this will help you personalize the Flow experience. Enjoy!
New: Map Portlet
With our new Map Portlet, you can view any object that has coordinates on a map. You can even customize your maps with your own icons, colors and tool tips.
For now, we’re using Open Street Map as a base map. But later on, you should be able to use any type of base map you want: public maps like Google or Bing, but also custom maps with different types of overlays. The information for the map comes from either workflows or SQL queries, as usual.
Usability Updates
We’re always striving to make Novacura Flow more efficient, effective, and easy to use. Find out how we’ve improved the user experience in Flow 6.6:
New KPI Portlet: The Speedometer
The new Speedometer Portlet helps you clearly visualize important KPIs against a goal or target and show how close you are to meeting it. As usual, the information for these KPIs comes from either workflows or SQL queries. You can customize the look and feel of the Speedometer with color rules based on the underlying information.
Improvements to Calendar Control
We introduced the Calendar control in Flow 6.5. Now we’ve added some extra features:
- You can now mark days as “read only”. This means you can view what’s on that day, but you can’t add or change anything. Read only days are marked red in the calendar.
- You can now add “blurbs” to days. A blurb is a way to show the user important information about a specific day – for example the number of scheduled vs. reported hours worked.
Smart Column Widths in the Grid
You now have three different options when it comes to setting column width in the grid:
- Clip - the text is clipped according to size setting. No word wrap.
- Break - the column width is defined by the size setting and the text then wraps on multiple rows, to the maximum height of 85% of max grid height.
- Fit - the column width is fitted to the largest value displayed in the column - up to approx. 85% of grid width. Fit overrides the size setting.
We hope that this addition will help you get the most out of your grid space.
Default Exit from a User Step
In most scanning scenarios, you want a hands-free user experience: the user should only have to input information when it’s absolutely necessary. But previously, if a workflow had multiple possible exits from a user step, the user would have to manually input which exit they wanted.
Now there’s a way around this: default exits. When designing a workflow, you can now set one possible exit as the “default”. This should help make the scanning process more efficient.
Portal Push Events / Auto Refresh
In some situations, you want to have real-time feedback in the Portal. For example: if you’re monitoring critical information with the Flow Portal, or if you’re using the Portal as a Team Board. To help make sure you always have the newest, freshest information, we’ve added a new feature: Push Events. You trigger a Push Event from a workflow: The Push Event is sent to a specific target (like a Portlet) which then reacts to the event. With Push Events, you’ll always have the most up-to-date information in the Portal.
New Connectors
Flow 6.6 come with two new IFS connectors:
- IFS 10 Database Connector, with all the query and script capabilities you’d expect from a database connector
- IFS 10 API Connector, which lets you connect to all the procedures and functions in IFS without any programming.
We’ve added two more connectors to Flow 6.6 as well:
- M3 REST API Connector, which can be used to execute transactions in Infor M3 through its M3-API-REST bulk API. It’s based on the REST Connector and will produce output in the same format, including for instance http status codes to help workflow designers handle error paths in a controlled way.
- OAUTH2 Authorization Connector, a simple and powerful solution for building workflows that connect to all of the Cloud services you need. The authorization is made as a separate step in the workflow, before calling the cloud service, and the output – a security token – can be used later in the workflow as input to the REST connector.
Flow Portal and Web Client: the Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship
If you use both the Portal and the Web Clients, you may have received a visit from the Flow Thief. The Flow Thief liked to pay a visit when you switched between the two clients, as both of the clients wanted to be the one owning the user.
The Portal and Web Clients have teamed up in Flow 6.6 to get rid of the Flow Thief once and for all. Now, if you’re using both the Portal and the Web Client, you can work in both clients without being interrupted.
Security Updates
Security is crucial: that’s why we’re constantly upgrading Flow’s security features. Read on to find out about the security updates in Flow 6.6.
Event Logging
We’ve added the ability to log events in Flow to the Windows Event log. Although a bit technical, this feature will greatly improve the possibilities to monitor, log and react to activities in Flow. The GDPR people will love this feature.
These events are currently supported by the Event Logging:
- USER_CREATED
- USER_UPDATED
- USER_DELETED
- USER_LOGGED_IN
- USER_LOGGED_OUT
- ACCESS_DENIED
- DEVICE_APPROVED
- DEVICE_BLOCKED
- MENU_CHANGE
- ROLES_CHANGE
Flow Studio
In order to meet requirements from the increasing number of customers that have external access to their Flow Server, we’ve introduced a new security setting for the Flow Studio.
This setting allows gives you the option to stop people from accessing Studio from the Internet, while still allowing them to access the Flow client through the Internet. You can activate this setting from the Flow Server Tool.
Flow Web Client and Portal
Another new security enhancement is the option to always log out users when they close the web client. This setting will reduce the risk of unintentional, unauthorized access of Flow.
You can activate this setting in the Flow Server Tool. Turning it on will force users to log in every time they access the Flow Web Client or Portal.
Have questions about Novacura Flow 6.6? Let us know!
