This section describes enhancements, system data details and deprecation notices in Oracle Utilities Application Framework v25.4 including:

This section describes the new and enhanced data privacy and security features in this release, including:

The system is enhanced to support masking numeric values on the user interface. This is useful if your implementation has certain quantities or amounts that are sensitive and should only be available unmasked to certain users.

The system provides a new masking algorithm type (F1-MASKNBR) for number masking. The following functionality is provided by this algorithm type:

Masking for alphanumeric data, such as credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and personal identification numbers (for example, social security number) was already supported.

This does not impact any existing extensions.

To enable this feature, refer to the User Interface Masking section of the Administrative User Guide for more information.

The Data Masking plug-in spot was also enhanced to receive the Field Name as optional input to the algorithm.

This section describes the new and enhanced product usability features in this release, including:

You can search for REST Inbound Web Services by operation information and help text details.

In addition, the Open API spec may also be launched from the Inbound Web Service Operation portal for your convenience.

This provides more flexible search options. There is no impact to existing extensions with this enhancement.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The Batch Job Submission search page has been converted to a portal to provide you with a more flexible user experience. The portal includes additional filters to allow more granularity in the search. The search also supports pagination, providing the ability to navigate between sets of search results.

This provides you with more search criteria and additional information in the search results. There is no impact to existing extensions with this enhancement.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The search widget no longer requires a preceding slash to search for a menu item.

If the keyword for the menu name matches keywords in the unified search results, you will see results mixed in. In this example, the word "market" includes results with "market" in the menu name and "market" in a customer's name or address.

When you enter a slash before the menu item text, it is a signal to the search to only search for the text in menu entries.

When using the Search widget, no longer requiring the slash improves usability and consistency.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Based on volume testing, the queries used to select records for the batch run and batch thread analytics snapshot tables have been optimized. Additional indexes have been added to the tables to support the amended queries. The batch processes now also support selecting records within a range of days, instead of months, to provide more flexibility in the initial population of the snapshot tables.

The processes used to populate the batch analytics table have been amended to improve performance.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The batch analytics views no longer derive data directly from the various batch run related tables. Instead, the views now reference the snapshot tables, which have been designed to simplify the view SQL and to take advantage of specific indices that are not available in the source data.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The CodeMirror library is now used to apply syntax highlighting logic to the SQL editor in data explorer Zones. Line sequence numbers were also added.

The same improvements are visible in the HTML Editor for a UI map.

When viewing or editing the SQL definition in zone maintenance and when viewing or editing the HTML for a UI map, readability is improved with syntax highlighting.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The following language related to a business object status may now be overridden by your implementation:

For example, you could change the status "Canceled" for a given business object to use the term "Discarded". You could do this by navigating to the lifecycle definition for that business object and providing an override description for the "Canceled" state. In addition, you can find the states that transition to Canceled and override the Action Label from "Cancel" to "Discard".

The description of any product-delivered business object Status Reason can now also be overridden by your implementation.

This does not impact any existing extensions. The user interface may change if you choose to override descriptions.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The product delivers two new views:

If you have any custom zones that retrieve the DESCR field from F1_BUS_OBJ_STATUS_L or from F1_BUS_OBJ_STATUS_RSN_L and you plan to override any business object status description or a status reason description, you should update your custom zone to use the corresponding view instead.

The vertical area that stays anchored in the application as a user moves through the system is now referred to as a "Sidebar" instead of a "Dashboard." This change is reflected in documentation, metadata descriptions, and configuration on the User page related to the area (including the Sidebar Width, the Sidebar Location and the Sidebar State). This does not impact any extensions.

This allows the "Sidebar" to be distinguished from other "Dashboards" used to describe portals that display high-level views of a specific subject area. For example, the Batch Day Dashboard and the To Do Dashboard.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The help drop down menu was enhanced to include a Release Notes entry. For cloud implementations, the link brings you to the Cloud Readiness/What's New portal for the appropriate product and version. For an on-premise implementation, the link brings you to the Release Notes page for the appropriate product and version.

You now have a link to quickly access the information about the new features for the current version of the product.

This does not impact any existing extensions.

System administrators should set/grant users/grant access to the F1-RELNOTE application service, Inquire access mode.

The master configuration functionality is enhanced to support multiple records for the same business object. You can use an optional new primary Part Name field to uniquely identify the record. Note that the master configuration business object needs to be designed to support multiple parts as indicated by a designated business object option. By default, the part name is not populated for the main record, which allows additional parts to have a unique value as needed.

Due to a growing number of master configuration records, the master configuration UI has become a standard maintenance portal with a separate query portal. This allows for a better user experience when searching for records and allows different business objects to have their own portals as needed.

Additionally, the master configuration maintenance object is enhanced to support the following new features:

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Upgrade scripts ensure that users with Read access to the existing application service will have access to the new application service associated with the new portal. The table below lists the existing and new application services.

 

Any business object that supports an Edit action should include a standard Record Actions section as part of its display map. Prior to this release, if a business object did not include such a section, it could still be edited via the old portal. The new standardized maintenance portal requires the section to exist. You should correct these custom business objects accordingly. Until these custom business objects are fixed, you may include the Master Configuration Actions (F1MFGACT) zone to the Master Configuration maintenance portal.

A new Row Header attribute has been added to the schema definition to allow one or more elements to be explicitly marked as row headers. Previously, the system automatically assigned the attribute scope="row" to the PK field for a list or to the first non-suppressed element. This was not always the element that best identified the row. For example, a sequence number would have been less meaningful than the description of the next element in the list, such as a parameter name.

This improves the experience for users using a screen reader.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

This section describes the new and enhanced To Do features in this release, including:

Several improvements were made to the To Do Entry lifecycle to more accurately reflect the status of a To Do Entry:

The two new status values of In Progress and On Hold are captured in a new Substatus field (TD_SUB_STATUS_FLG) on the To Do Entry. This new field can only be populated if the To Do Entry is in the Assigned status (the status formerly known as Being Worked On). This was done so that any implementation with the existing status field (ENTRY_STATUS_FLG) will continue to work as before.

An implementation needs to opt into using the substatus functionality by giving users that work on To Do Entries access to the new access modes. See the release readiness detail below for directions. Once an implementation has opted into the functionality, you will see these additional capabilities related to To Do Entries:

The To Do log has been enhanced to capture the status of the To Do Entry at the time the log is created as follows:

All the places where a To Do status is shown for an existing record, the system will show the substatus of In Progress or On Hold, if populated, otherwise it will show the Status (Open, Assigned or Complete).

The To Do Dashboard > To Dos by Status graph has been enhanced to also break out counts by substatus.

Provide the required access before using this feature.

Regardless of whether an implementation has opted into the functionality, you will see that the additional status values are now available in the filter criteria for Status on the To Do Management and To Do Dashboard > Details pages. The filters for other pages, including To Do Search, To Do List, and Supervisor To Do Assignment have not changed to include the substatus values in the filter criteria. In addition, any page that shows a bar with counts of Assigned or Open To Do Entries have not changed to include counts by the substatus values.

See the Improved To Do States training.

System administrators should set/grant users/grant access to the access modes HDPR (Hold Progress), SPWK (Stop Work) and STPR (Start Progress) for the CILQTDEP application service. If you choose to use this functionality, the recommendation is that this security is granted to all users that use To Do Entry (or none).

If a To Do Type is configured with a creation process and a routing process, a To Do Entry based on that type now supports both processes. The creation process is stamped for audit purposes and the routing process is stamped so that the To Do Entry is processed the next time the routing process is run. Previously, although the To Do Type supported configuration for both types of processes, the To Do Entry table could only support a relationship to the creation batch process. The routing process functionality was not possible. To Do Entries created by a batch process may also be marked to be routed to an external system, increasing usability.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The system now includes the following calculated duration information on the To Do Entry page:

In addition, the base delivered Information string for a To Do Entry has been updated to include the age for a non-complete To Do and the duration for a completed To Do.

If your implementation uses a To Do information algorithm to override the base delivered information, you will not see any change to your To Do information. This change does not impact any extensions.

When you see the calculated duration information, it helps you understand at a glance how long a To Do entry took to work on and how long before it was completed.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The zone that displays related To Do entries on the To Do Entry maintenance portal has been enhanced to support actions on the related To Do entries. In addition, the current To Do being maintained is included in the results so that you can perform actions on all To Do entries.

The Related To Do Entries zone supports all the actions available on the To Do Management portal. You can do mass assignment, mass updates to priority, mass addition of a log entry, and mass completion. In addition, you have access to the Work button to push all the related To Do entries into your Worklist. The actions are only available if a user is allowed to work all the related To Do entries.

On the To Do Management zone and the To Do Details zone on the To Do Dashboard portal, the link for the Related To Dos message now brings you to the To Do Entry maintenance portal. Previously, you were brought to the To Do Search page where you could do actions only on the To Do entries related to the one in the results.

This does not impact any extensions.

The ability to action one or more related To Dos on the To Do Entry maintenance portal provides improved support for managing multiple records.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Prior to this release, the same filters impacting all charts on the To Do Dashboard portal were displayed redundantly within each chart zone. As of this release the display of these filters, and the ability to reset them, has been moved to a central zone at the top of the portal.

Displaying filters in a central zone as opposed to being embedded in each chart zone adds clarity about the content being displayed and improves the usability of the portal.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The following dialogues has been enhanced to be consistent with respect to prompting for comments and adding a user log entry when updating or completing one or more to do entries:

No steps are required to enable this feature.

This section describes the new and enhanced batch processing features in this release, including:

Previously, the plugin-driven extract process was enhanced to allow for the Process Records algorithm to return one or more file names to write the data to. In this release, the capability is extended to File Integration Types. The Extract Process algorithm plug-in spot on the file integration record now also supports returning a file name, allowing for records to be written to a file that differs based on business data, such as CIS Division or service provider. The plug-in spot supports indicating a file name for each schema instance if the use case requires some components of a work unit's information to be written to a separate file.

The ability to indicate that one or more open files should be closed is also supported by the Extract Process plug-in spot. This ensures that batch processes do not cause more than 10 files to be open at a given time for a given thread, which saves on memory allocation.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The batch log files generated for batch threads, which you can download while viewing the results of a batch run on the batch run tree, are produced using the following format:

The values of the batch control, run number, re-run number, n for thread number, and datetime are substituted at runtime. The new format aligns with the format for the logs generated at the batch run level ((Batch control).(run number).(re-run number).(datetime).stdout|stderr).

Previously, the format of these file names was the following:

No steps are required to enable this feature.

DB Resource Manager tools may be used to prioritize resource allocation between various groups of batch processes. For example, processes like GDE. CMA, ILM etc., may be associated with a lower resource allocation priority relative to more critical batch processes. To support this capability, certain batch controls can be explicitly associated with a Resource Group of three pre-defined priority levels: 10 - High, 20 - Medium, 30 - Low. This definition is made using a new Batch Resource Configuration extendable lookup. The base product does not release values in this extendable lookup, allowing you to set up your own priority references.

When configured, the resource group of a batch control is added as part of the MODULE database session variable as follows: <batch control>,R=<resource group> and can be used as a correlation to a consumer group mapping in Oracle Resource Manager.

With this configuration enabled, DBAs can set up rules that parse the MODULE variable to identify the resource group for a batch process and apply prioritization rules accordingly. Since not all batch controls would be associated with a resource groups, default allocation rules should be considered.

In addition, the batch control query portal is enhanced to filter by and display resource group information.

To enable this feature, complete these steps:

The Batch Job Submission page has been converted to a portal, leveraging a more flexible user interface metaphor. The portal organizes information in a way that makes it easier to review and enter key details, such as batch job parameters.

In addition, the following user interactions were changed in the portal:

This does not impact any extensions.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

A new business object (BO) for Batch Job Submission and a new Determine BO algorithm linked to the Maintenance Object were introduced. The base BO includes all the user interface behavior designed for the new portal. If your implementation has introduced your own CM business object and CM Determine BO algorithm, you should review your business object's configuration and merge it into the base business object.

Upgrade scripts ensure that users with Read access to the existing application service will have access to the new application service associated with the new portal. The table below lists the existing and new application services.

 

Note that any existing bookmarks for this page will take you to the previous version of the page. You need to take the following actions to move the bookmark to the new page:

The email sent when a batch job is complete now includes the domain name, if configured for the environment, directly in the email subject.

For example:

In a previous release, support for the domain name was added and the batch email was updated to include the domain name in the body of the email. If you were running the same batch job in multiple environments, you needed to open each email to see which environment the message referred to.

This does not impact any extensions.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The domain name is defined in the Messages tab of the Installation Options - Framework page using the Domain Name message type.

The following improvements were made to the Batch Job Submission portal:

This does not impact any extensions.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Upgrade scripts ensure that users with Add access to the existing Batch Job Submission (CILZRBPP) application service will have access to the new User Override (F1UO) access mode.

You should review user groups that are not allowed to override the batch user at batch job submission and remove their access to the User Override (F1UO) access mode.

After you configure Batch Level Of Service on the appropriate Batch Controls, you can use this API to track the Batch Level Of Service for monitoring purposes.

The API supports two operations:

This allows the monitoring tools to use Batch Level Of Service as a monitoring metric.

System administrators should set/grant users/grant access to the access mode F1EX for the CILTBTCP application service.

This API is only applicable if the Batch Level Of Service is configured.

Many plugin-driven batch processes include parameters specific to that process. This plugin spot now provides the ability to detect any parameter errors at the batch run level, before any further processing. Previously, there was no way to validate those parameters prior to invoking the select or process records algorithms.

This is a single algorithm plugin spot. For multiple algorithms, the one with the highest sequence is used. The assumption is that algorithms for this spot will use standard error message reporting.

In this release users can define options on a Batch Control. These work like options on other objects such as business objects and portals. These options allow the product and your implementation to mark batch controls with additional information.

Options on Batch Control allow the product and implementations to link additional information to a batch control for special processing or for reporting purposes.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The product provides a business service (F1-RetrieveBatchOption) to retrieve the options for a given Batch Control and option type. When calling the business service you indicate whether you expect a single option value or if there can be multiple option values.

The Batch Control page has been converted to a portal, leveraging a more flexible and extendable user interface metaphor. The portal organizes information in a way that makes it easier to review the batch control's configuration and includes the following key features:

No steps are required to enable this feature.

A new business object for Batch Control and a new Determine BO algorithm linked to the Maintenance Object were introduced. The base business object includes all the user interface behavior designed for the new portal. If your implementation has introduced your own CM business object and CM Determine BO algorithm, you should review your business object's configuration and align it with the base business object.

Upgrade scripts ensure that users with Read access to the existing application service will have access to the new application service associated with the new portal. The table below lists the existing and new application services.

The business service that returns the level of service information for a specific batch control (F1-BatchLevelOfService) is now aligned with the logic of the Health Check business service (F1-HealthCheck). When multiple Level of Service algorithms are plugged in on the batch control, the overall Level of Service code is populated as follows:

In addition, the Threads tab has been enhanced to support a Thread Summary action that summarizes instance information per thread.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The Batch Run portal has been enhanced to reflect the Accumulate All Instances indication set on the batch control when displaying information at the batch run thread level.

The Reason is set to "See Results for Details". In addition, the results returned by each algorithm is returned so that the caller can review the details.

This business service is called by the F1-BatchLevelOfService REST inbound web service. Users of this API will now see the additional details.

When calling the Batch Level of Service API, you now can see the supporting details when there are multiple level of service algorithms. In addition, the summarized level of detail output surfaces the most important information.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

If multiple batch jobs are submitted for the same batch control, only one job runs at a time; the other jobs wait in the queue. There are some use cases where a batch is submitted from an online transaction to defer heavy processing to batch. If multiple users are performing the same action for different records, the jobs are queued up.

In this release, there is the concept of a Batch Group where multiple batch controls may get created for the same purpose and get associated, via an option, to a Batch Group. The existing F1SubmitJob "Submit Batch Job" script was enhanced to submit a job for the requested batch control or any of the batch controls associated with it using the Batch Group option. If the requested batch control is associated with a batch group, then the batch control with a low number of in progress batch jobs is submitted.

Note that associating a batch control with a batch group should be done with caution. You should ensure that all batch controls in the group can run concurrently without interfering each other.

As part of this enhancement, the Additional Information option of the Batch Control Query portal was also enhanced to support a search by batch control options.

When applicable, pool-based batch submission supports a more efficient way of delegating user-centric tasks to be performed via batch processes that can run in parallel.

You need to update the logic that submits the batch job to call F1SubmitJob passing the batch group.

Typically, system generated keys are assigned in such a way that they are evenly distributed across batch threads. This is known as the "Thread Iteration (THDS)" strategy where each thread is assigned a low to high key range that is based solely on the size of the primary key field. There are situations where keys do not evenly distribute across threads, resulting in uneven thread completion times. For example, conversion entities in the staging schema have legacy keys, which are typically not evenly assigned. This impacts the Object Validation and XML resolution batch processes that thread by legacy keys.

In this release, a new variation of the thread distribution strategy 'KEYS" was introduced where the low and high IDs for the thread are calculated based on actual keys. The range is calculated based on the total number of records in the table divided by the requested number of threads, such that each thread processes approximately the same number of records.

The new strategy is available to plug-in driven and standard monitor batch processes. These batch programs support a new Batch Strategy batch parameter that can be used to override the default strategy. Note that the new strategy can only be used when processing is over a table with a single system generated prime key.

To enable this feature when submitting a monitor batch or a plug-in driven batch, populate the Batch Strategy parameter with the value KEYS.

The plugin-driven extract batch job was enhanced to support output formats related to JSON:

In this release, a new variation of the thread distribution strategy 'KEYS" was introduced where the low and high IDs for the thread are calculated based on actual keys. The range is calculated based on the total number of records in the table divided by the requested number of threads, such that each thread processes approximately the same number of records.

To enable this feature, refer to the Extract Record Processing topic in the Background Processes chapter of the Framework Administrative User Guide. Several sections in that topic highlight considerations for using JSON and JSONL format.

Previously, uploading a file using the plugin-driven upload batch process assumed that the content of the entire file was processed as a single unit of work. With this approach, an upload of a large file has often hit various resource limitations and timed out.

As of this release, the following features were introduced to better support large file uploads:

If you have large files to upload, choose one of the new features to better process the file.

To use the batch job that takes a large file and splits it to smaller files, complete these steps:

No coding changes are required for this option.

To use the feature where the algorithm can handle chunks of work, coding changes are needed. Refer to the section The File Upload Algorithm in the Uploading Records topic in the Background Processes chapter of the Framework Administrative User Guide. With this option the additional batch process to split the file is not needed.

This section describes the new and enhanced implementation tools in this release, including:

The Business Object page has been converted to a portal, leveraging a more flexible and extendable user interface metaphor. The portal organizes information in a way that makes it easier to review and understand the configuration that controls business object related functionality.

In addition, the following implementation tasks were simplified by updates in this release:

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The following terms were added to the SQL Allowlist:

Note that the terms were also added to the allowlist in previous releases via patches. This does not impact any extensions.

Additional terms included in SQL allowlist provides implementations with more capabilities when writing SQL statements in data explorers.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Business object option types and algorithms system events are now documented in designated extendable lookups, Option Configuration for option types and Algorithm Entity Type for system events. It is noted whether they support single or multiple values. This configuration is for documentation purposes only. Previously, there was no indication as to whether a business object's option type or algorithm system event implemented a single value or supported multiple values.

Using this information, the Business Object portal uses an icon to highlight whether a single value option type or algorithm system event record has been overridden by a higher sequence record. The situation may occur when the business object's option or system event configuration is extended by other products or customers. In the same way, an icon is used to highlight that a business object algorithm has been inactivated. The use of these icons makes it easier to focus on configuration records that are in effect and active.

The detailed description of the option types are presented in a more user friendly and searchable way. Also, as of this release, you can maintain reasons for a specific status directly on the Lifecycle tab where you review and maintain all other status-related configurations.

This does not impact any extensions.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

If you have introduced custom business object-related option types, it is recommended that you also define them in the Option Configuration extendable lookup to indicate whether the option type assumes a single value or multiple values. By default, the Business Object portal displays an option type that is not defined in the extendable as if it supports a single value.

In the same way, if you have introduced custom business object related system events, it is recommended that you also define them in the Algorithm Entity Type extendable lookup to indicate whether the system event assumes a single algorithm or multiple algorithms. By default, the Business Object portal displays a system event that is not defined in the extendable as if it supports multiple algorithms.

The Populate Node and Override Information tree node algorithms can now optionally set the broadcast fields to use. When this information is not provided, the default primary key field names are used. Previously, when a user clicked on the broadcast icon on a tree node, the broadcasted field names were hardcoded to the node entity's primary key field names. While this was appropriate for most entities, there were use cases where the broadcasted field names should have differed from key names.

In addition, these tree node algorithms can now also determine that for a specific node the broadcast icon is not applicable and therefore should not be displayed. The tree node definition must explicitly allow broadcasting for the icon to appear and the algorithm can only set it to not appear as needed for a specific node.

This does not impact any extensions.

This allows for better support of complex tree node broadcasting requirements and provides more flexible interaction with trees.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The Extensions Dashboard portal was enhanced to show all revisions made to an extension entity in descending order in a new Revision Control zone. A Configuration Migration zone was also added to also list all Content Migration Assistant migration objects that applied changes to an extension entity. These zones appear only when an extension entity is selected.

A new Review tab was added to the Extensions Dashboard portal to highlight rare duplicate configuration issues that may arise after an upgrade. Utilities can use this information to adjust their configuration.

This does not impact any extensions.

The new user experience allows utilities and partners to improve the way they track and manage their extensions, which helps to reduce implementation costs.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Lookup values can be easily filtered by various criteria and a smaller set of records can be selected for update. This helps handle lookup fields, like algorithm entity, that have too many values to manage as a single list. This does not impact any extensions.

This improved user experience helps to reduce implementation costs.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

A new Algorithm Entity query and display portal is available. You can use the query portal to look for a specific algorithm entity (also referred to as a plug-in spot). In case you want to research more than one plug-in spot, the results include a worklist icon to put results in a worklist.

Once you select an entry, you are brought to a display portal where you can review information about the algorithm entity. You can use the View Plug-in Spot API link to see the hard parameters passed into algorithms for this plug-in spot. You can read the detailed description, if provided, to understand more information about how or when algorithms are called and their responsibility.

If there are any algorithm types for the plug-in spot, they are listed in a separate zone. If applicable, you can drill into the algorithm type or its script. It includes the parameters and the number of algorithms for the algorithm type.

This does not impact any extensions.

System administrators should set/grant users/grant access to the following application services:

The new folder structure does the following:

Reorganizing the folder structure makes it easier for you to locate folders, which results in faster development and bug fixes. In the future, this structure will make it easier to adopt other common development tools.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

All the Oracle Utilities Application Framework references have been updated as necessary. If a UI Map has been developed that manually references a library file, it will need to be updated.

Prior to this release, the publication process of product APIs involved a manual online step of downloading the OpenAPI Specification file for each web service and adjusting its content for external publication.

A new batch process, F1-APIEX, is now provided to simplify this task and generate a publication-ready specification file for each web service included in a web service category. This batch process is only applicable to anyone responsible for extracting API documentation.

This does not impact any extensions.

System administrators should set/grant users/grant access to the F1-APIEX application service.

The following details are included in the Open API specification for a web service:

This does not impact any extensions.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

It is simpler for you to set up Portal and Business Object options where an option's value is restricted to a set of valid values. A user can chose from a drop-down list of valid values.

The Option Configuration extendable lookup is enhanced to support a reference to a lookup field that represents the valid values for the lookup. When specified, the corresponding options maintenance UI provides a drop-down list with the corresponding lookup values and the display UI shows the corresponding lookup value description.

This does not impact any extensions.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The Business Service page has been converted to a portal, leveraging a more flexible and extendable user interface metaphor. The portal organization makes it easier to review the business service's configuration and includes the following key features:

There is no impact to existing extensions with this enhancement.

To enable implementers that already have security rights to create scripts to also test their scripts using the new Test action, provide them with access to application service Test a Service (F1SCRTEST).

A new business object (BO) for Business Service and a new Determine BO algorithm linked to the Maintenance Object were introduced. The base BO includes all the user interface behavior designed for the new portal. If your implementation has introduced your own CM business object and CM Determine BO algorithm, you should review your business object's configuration and align it with the base business object.

Upgrade scripts ensure that users with Read access to the existing application service will have access to the new application service associated with the new portal. The table lists the existing and new application services.

A new LookupHelper.getLookupInstance Java method is provided, which allows programmers to instantiate a lookup object for use in subsequent Groovy code. For example:

Previously, the product did not support a good method for instantiating a lookup object in a Groovy script when there was no Java class generated for the lookup.

You can instantiate a lookup object in Groovy when referring to a custom lookup value rather than using a variable.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The F1-APIEX batch process no longer requires a web service category. This makes it easier to generate a complete list of specification files for all web services that are ready for publication. When a web service category is specified, the batch processing is restricted as before to those web services included in the specified category.

In addition, the definition of being ready for publication is extended to also include custom web services that are active.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The Maintenance Object page has been converted to a portal, leveraging a more flexible and extendable user interface metaphor. The portal organization makes it easier to review the maintenance object's configuration and includes the following key features:

There is no impact to existing extensions with this enhancement.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

A new business object (BO) for Maintenance Object and a new Determine BO algorithm linked to the Maintenance Object were introduced. The base BO includes all the user interface behavior designed for the new portal. If your implementation has introduced your own CM business object and CM Determine BO algorithm, you should review your business object's configuration and align it with the base business object.

Upgrade scripts ensure that users with Read access to the existing application service will have access to the new application service associated with the new portal. The table lists the existing and new application services.

The Script page has been converted to a portal, leveraging a more flexible and extendable user interface metaphor. The portal organization makes it easier to review the script's configuration and includes the following key features:

In addition, the script query portal is enhanced with a new Additional Information option that supports searching for scripts by schema information. There is no impact to existing extensions with this enhancement.

To enable implementers that already have security rights to create scripts to also test their scripts using the new Test action, provide them with access to application service Test a Service (F1SCRTEST).

A new business object (BO) for Script and a new Determine BO algorithm linked to the Maintenance Object were introduced. The base BO includes all the user interface behavior designed for the new portal. If your implementation has introduced your own CM business object and CM Determine BO algorithm, you should review your business object's configuration and align it with the base business object.

Upgrade scripts ensure that users with Read access to the existing application service will have access to the new application service associated with the new portal. The table lists the existing and new application services.

Making changes to a schema requires the application to ensure the changes do not violate any schema that references it. The validation process is complex and may time out when the number of references is high. A new batch utility, Update Object Schema (F1-SCMUP), is provided to perform this type of change as a batch process, which allows for higher time limits. The user submitting the change in batch should have the same security permissions needed to perform it online. In addition, submitting the batch requires access to the Update Object Schema (F1-SCHEMAUPD) batch application service.

Supporting a batch utility to make a change to a highly referenced schema assists rare implementation tasks that cannot be completed online.

System administrators should set/grant users/grant access to the Update Object Schema (F1-SCHEMAUP) application service.

New mnemonics have been added to the Zone Action parameters in base delivered zone types. The mnemonics allow you to reference a visibility script that can check a condition and return an indication of whether or not to show the action. The mnemonics are:

The following is an example of the zone configuration for a base delivered zone that shows links to view a service script's schema. The visibility script checks the type of script being displayed and returns an output Boolean of 'true' only if the script is a service script.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

In a future release, the product will introduce mnemonics to check a user's security access before displaying a zone header action. This information would get cached as a user's security access does not change during their session. It is recommended to wait for that feature and not to create visibility scripts for checking security. You should use the visibility script to check for conditions that could change based on the data being displayed.

In this release a property is introduced (isLiveProduction) to indicate that the environment is the live production environment. By default this value is set to “false”.

An example of functionality that uses this property to determine behavior is Extensions Dashboard Improvements.

This property enables the base product and implementations to implement tighter restrictions or different default behavior for a live production environment as compared to other environments.

To enable this feature, contact your Customer Success Manager to confirm your live production environment to ensure that the property value will be set correctly.

The product allows implementations to define a custom style sheet using a Feature Configuration option. In previous releases, the system only supported defining a *.CSS file and referring to the file location in the option. In this release, the feature option now also allows you to refer to a Managed Content entry.

Implementing a custom style sheet using managed content allows for implementations to override the cascading style sheet (CSS) using metadata rather than using a CSS file.

To enable this feature, complete these steps:

When an email is initiated from within the system using the business service F1-EmailService, the 'from' email address is a parameter that may be populated by the calling program. In this release, the Message Sender has been enhanced to support defining the "from" email address when defining an Email sender using the context type "SMTP From Address". If the call to the business service refers to a sender directly or relies on the default sender (defined on the Message Option) and the 'from' context type is populated, this value is used. Otherwise the value passed into the business service is used.

Note that your specific application may already have some configuration for determining the "From" email address of a given email use case, for example in Feature Configuration. If those values satisfy your implementation's use cases, then no changes are needed.

To enable this feature, complete these steps:

In a previous release, the system introduced redaction rules. Implementations use these rules to identify fields that may contain Personal Identifiable Information for their customer data. In this release, the redaction rules are now used to apply to data being written to debug log files.

By default the redaction rules are applied. In a production environment, this setting cannot be turned off. However, in a non-production environment, the setting can be turned off using a Feature Configuration.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The system uses a property to identify whether an environment is a live production environment or not. For cloud customers, this is set by the development operations team when a customer indicates they are live. For on-premises clients, you should set this property when you are live. Refer to the Framework Administrative User Guide for more information.

If you are in a non-production environment and the data getting written to the logs is not real customer information and you would like to turn off the log redaction, you may turn it off by adding a feature option:

Note that only users with the Administrator access mode (F1SU) for the Feature Configuration application service (CILTWSDP) may add this entry.

In this release, the product delivers two maintenance objects: Product Metric Type and Product Metric Snapshot. The product uses algorithms related to these objects to calculate and capture product use metrics.

In previous releases, the product used entries in the Statistics Control and Statistics Snapshot objects to capture product use metrics, causing these tables to include a mixture of statistics related to your implementation's business processes as well as product use metrics.

Implementations do not need to manage or review the information in the new objects. The Product Use Metrics dashboard zones have been updated to display information captured in the Product Metric Snapshot table per the new functionality.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

If your implementation has statistic control entries related to product metrics, they will remain. The Product Use Metric dashboard will no longer use this information with the introduction of the Product Metric Snapshot. Consider marking the records as inactive.

Standard user interface components with associated security are provided for the new objects, but implementations do not need to manage or review the information.

The Migration Data Set Export Query portal has been enhanced to use the data set's file name as the worklist description.

Using the export file name as a more meaningful worklist description makes it easier to work with CMA export data sets.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The Data Area page has been converted to a portal, leveraging a more flexible and extendable user interface metaphor. The portal organizes information in a way that makes it easier to review the data area's configuration and includes the following key features:

No steps are required to enable this feature.

A new business object (BO) for Data Area and a new Determine BO algorithm linked to the Maintenance Object were introduced. The base BO includes all the user interface behavior designed for the new portal. If your implementation has introduced your own CM business object and CM Determine BO algorithm, you should review your business object's configuration and align it with the base business object.

Upgrade scripts ensure that users with Read access to the existing application service will have access to the new application service associated with the new portal. The table below lists the existing and new application services.

Note that any existing bookmarks for this page will take you to the previous version of the page. You need to take the following actions to move the bookmark to the new page:

The new Data Correction Request Root, Orphan Record Deletion, and Orphan Record Deletion Type business objects can be used together to create a request to process orphan records. In addition, there are new Backup Table Cleanup and Backup Table Cleanup Type business objects to deal with the backup tables created by the deletion request. The following points highlight features supported by these new objects:

Provide the required access before using the feature.

To enable users to create requests for orphan record deletion, you must give them add access to the application service for the new Data Correction Request Root business object (F1-DATACORRECTIONRBO).

Upgrade scripts ensure that users with Read access to the existing request type all-in-one portal will have access to the new application service associated with the new query portal. The table below lists the existing and new application services.

System administrators should grant access to the F1-DATACORRECTIONRBO application service for any user that is going to create requests for orphan data correction.

The Feature Configuration page has been converted to a portal, leveraging a more flexible and extendable user interface metaphor. The portal organizes information in a way that makes it easier to review the UI map's configuration and includes the following key features:

A new Feature Type Configuration extendable lookup was introduced to control whether one or more configurations are allowed for a feature type. It also controls whether external messages configuration is applicable for the feature type. By default, if an extendable lookup record does not exist for a feature type, it is assumed to allow a single configuration and not support external messages configuration.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

A new business object (BO) for UI Map and a new Determine BO algorithm linked to the Maintenance Object were introduced. The base BO includes all the user interface behavior designed for the new portal. If your implementation has introduced your own CM business object and CM Determine BO algorithm, you should review your business object's configuration and align it with the base business object.

Upgrade scripts ensure that users with Read access to the existing application service will have access to the new application service associated with the new portal. The table below lists the existing and new application services.

Note that any existing bookmarks for this page will take you to the previous version of the page. You need to take the following actions to move the bookmark to the new page:

The UI Map page has been converted to a portal, leveraging a more flexible and extendable user interface metaphor. The portal organizes information in a way that makes it easier to review the UI map's configuration and includes the following key features:

No steps are required to enable this feature.

A new business object (BO) for UI Map and a new Determine BO algorithm linked to the Maintenance Object were introduced. The base BO includes all the user interface behavior designed for the new portal. If your implementation has introduced your own CM business object and CM Determine BO algorithm, you should review your business object's configuration and align it with the base business object.

Upgrade scripts ensure that users with Read access to the existing application service will have access to the new application service associated with the new portal. The table below lists the existing and new application services.

Note that any existing bookmarks for this page will take you to the previous version of the page. You need to take the following actions to move the bookmark to the new page:

The F1-EmailService business service supports the ability to indicate information to be sent in the email as an attachment. The service supports referencing a record in the Attachment object.  In addition, for on premises clients only, it supports referencing a file path and file name directly.  In this release, the file paths referenced in this direct method must be 'registered' in the File Storage extendable lookup.

Note that the validation to check against the file storage extendable lookup is delivered in this release.  If your implementation uses the technique of referencing a file path and file name when calling F1-EmailService, you will need to configure appropriate entries before proceeding.  The system supports defining a "parent'" directory in the file storage extendable lookup.  When invoking F1-EmailService, providing a directory within the registered "parent" directory is supported.  For example, if you register the path D:\systemFiles\, at runtime when invoking F1-EmailService, you can provide a file in the path D:\systemFiles\CMA.

The allowlist for file paths ensures that the files included in an email are stored in an approved location.

To continue using the technique of sending emails with files from a specified file path, complete these steps:

This section describes the new and enhanced integration tools in this release, including:

Some products require that "Application ID" and "Tenant ID" values are included with certain API calls, typically as a way to identify the calling application for reporting purposes. These values are provided to the utility at onboarding time and need to be captured in the application in relation to these API configurations.

As of this release, the Message Sender context information was enhanced to also capture the following application details:

The new details are not involved in the process of orchestrating and routing the call. They need to be incorporated into the payload by the application logic that composes the message using the new "Get Application Variables (F1MsgVars)" service script.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The definition of valid cloud object storage regions are now configured using an extendable lookup rather than a lookup. Defining the regions in an extendable lookup allows us to support defining both the region key and the region identifier. Previously, using a lookup to define the region supported only defining the region key. Product code was required to map the region identifier, requiring code change any time a new region was defined.

The product provides base delivered values for all the regions that are provisioned for cloud services. You can define a region for cloud object storage that is not provided by the base produce using the region value in the extendable lookup.

For backward compatibility for upgrading implementations, all regions previously provided in the lookup that are not in the list of those that the product is supplying are provided in the extendable lookup with a "CM" (customer modification) owner.

This does not impact any extensions.

As Oracle Cloud expands the regions it offers, this change allows the services to react to these new regions quickly without changes to the product code.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Previously, the application supported a URL navigation to portal only via the portal's internal navigation key as the Location URL parameter. While a page's internal navigation key could change due to internal design implementations, its navigation option remained unchanged. As a result, it was better to share a page's navigation option with an external system than the internal navigation key.

In this release, a new URL parameter LocationNavOpt was introduced to support URL navigation to a portal using its navigation option.

Supporting URL navigation to a portal using its navigation option makes such UI integration flows more resilient to portal internal navigation key changes.

To enable this feature, integrations must be updated to use the new LocationNavOpt URL parameter with the desired navigation option code when launching the application.

This section describes the new and enhanced CMA features in this release, including:

You can now use entity tags to identify entities to export using Content Migration Assistant (CMA). The criteria based migration request functionality is enhanced to support a tag based export instruction as a way of exporting all entities associated with an entity tag.

This allows developers to collate their extensions in a similar way to bundling, but it harnesses the power of the Content Migration Assistant engine.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

When importing an object into an environment using Content Migration Assistant (CMA), the product supports selecting one or more SQLs associated with the object and suppressing them. At the apply stage, these SQLs are not included. This is useful when your object has one or more child rows that you prefer not to include in the target environment. In this release, the steps for selecting and marking records to suppress or unsuppress have been enhanced to support objects that have a large number of child records, and therefore a large number of SQLs. Now, instead of clicking Edit in the Migration Object main display zone, the List of SQL Statements zone now has Suppress and Unsuppress actions. You can use the filters on this zone to narrow down the results, select the appropriate records, and click the desired action.

Additional changes were made to the List of SQL Statements zone to better support a large number of records:

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Previously, some base product migration requests were inefficiently exporting all records of an entity, including many base owned records where the maintenance object did not include fields that could possibly contain customized content. Exporting so many of these entities placed a performance burden on the import step to load, compare, and eventually not apply them.

The following migration requests were enhanced to be more efficient and only export custom-owned entities for maintenance objects that do not contain custom fields:

No steps are required to enable this feature.

You can identify and delete configuration entities that were previously imported via Content Migration Assistant (CMA) and are no longer needed using the new Configuration Deletion portal.

The new portal assists a system administrator in reviewing and deleting configuration data as follows:

This does not impact any extensions.

System administrators should set/grant users/grant access to the F1CFGDEL- Configuration Deletion Portal application service.

A new query option, Included Entities, is available in the Migration Plan Query portal. You can use this option to find migration plans that include other entities. In addition, you can now search for import data sets based on their bulk mode option, which is also presented in the query results.

The ability to search for migration related entities by various criteria helps you review the CMA migration configuration.

This does not impact any extensions.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

A new API is available, via a REST Service, to allow tools to create and monitor export and import requests for the Content Migration Assistant. The API supports several operations:

System administrators should set/grant users/grant access to the access mode F1EX for the application service F1MIGRDS.

An Edit action is now supported for minor corrections. The action is available while the record is still in pending status and the monitor batch process has not begun. Previously, an import data set that was added incorrectly had to be canceled.

Supporting an edit action on pending import data set records makes it easy to handle minor corrections and improves the user experience.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The action requires standard change access rights to the migration data set import business object's application service (F1MIGRDIMP).

Previously, the canceled import data set status represented a request to cancel the dataset and a final status where all objects and transactions were already canceled. This caused a performance issue for the migration object apply batches as they needed to cancel (instead of apply), objects that belonged to a canceled dataset. This included the many data sets that were already fully canceled.

This release supports a distinction between a data set "pending cancel" status, that is a requested to be canceled, and the final "cancelled" status to which the data set transitions to when all its transactions and objects are canceled. With this new approach, you initially set the data set to pending cancel status and the data set is finally cancelled the next time the import data set monitor batch process runs after all the transactions and objects are canceled.

In addition, the import data set lifecycle now allows cancellation from any non-finalized status.

A new Non-Final Data Sets query option was added to the Migration Dataset Import Query, which considers only non-finalized records and allows for the cancellation of multiple data sets.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The first batch run of the Migration Data Set Import Monitor (F1-MGDIM) batch process may take longer as it transitions all cancelled data sets to the final cancelled status.

The File Storage extendable lookup captures environment-specific information, which makes it easy to surpass file storage settings using CMA. The same issue exists with specific master configuration entities that may contain environment-specific values. These records may be initially imported from another environment, but they are typically adjusted manually to reflect current environment settings and should not be updated again by an import. In this release, a mechanism is introduced to prevent an unintentional update of such records by a CMA import. The mechanism allows for these records to be added by an import without being updated.

The mechanism works as follows:

The File Storage extendable lookup business object is marked as containing environment-specific information using the new option. It should not be updated even if imported unintentionally from another environment.

In addition, the following changes were made to keep such entities in environment specific related migration requests:

No steps are required to enable this feature.

In this release, a new "No Records" status value has been introduced for the Migration Data Set Export to handle the condition where no records were found by the migration request instructions. This allows you to quickly distinguish between a data set that has an error that needs to be investigated and situations where there were simply no records that satisfied the selection criteria.

The condition of no records found by the migration request instructions when exporting now uses a special status, allowing you to distinguish this condition from errors that need to be investigated.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

If your implementation has any downstream steps that are looking at the status of the Migration Data Set Export to do subsequent steps, you may need to review that logic and confirm whether any steps need to be adjusted based on this new status value.

This section describes the new and enhanced web services features in this release, including:

The F1-OIMUSR (Populate User Data from a "Template" User) algorithm was enhanced to allow a Template User to be provided as a parameter. The algorithm is used by the User business object F1-IDMUser, which is used to create users from an external source. For example, the LDAP batch process uses this business object to create a user. The algorithm to copy information from a template user allows application configuration, such as user groups, user preferences, To Do roles, and other information not supplied by the external system, to be populated on the new user. Previously, this algorithm relied on the value of the template user to be provided as part of the payload for adding the user, using a characteristic. In this release, the algorithm first checks for a template user provided as a characteristic. If it is not found, it uses the template user provided as a parameter to the algorithm, if populated.

To enable this feature, complete these steps:

Date and time elements in requests and response messages require special handling when they contain no value. Unlike a string value, no value for date, time, and date/time elements has to be represented as null and not an empty string. In the same way, a numeric or Boolean element with "no value" should be represented as a null, not an empty string. Previously, the application did not properly accept null values for date and time elements in a JSON request. The application incorrectly represented such values in a JSON response as empty strings. The application correctly handled null values for numeric and Boolean elements except for a few outlier situations that were also fixed as part of this enhancement.

In this release, the Inbound Web Service REST engine v2 is enhanced to properly accept and process null values for elements of all data types.

The following clarifies some differences around request and response processing:

No steps are required to enable this feature.

For most integrations supported by the base product, the end point URL and other details may only be provided by the utility at provisioning time. Previously, the entire message sender definition for such integration point had to be defined by the utility along with the configuration of the external system record that references the message sender.

As of this release, partially defined message senders may be released with the base product, allowing utilities to complete the definition with the necessary context information. This also allows the base product to include a more comprehensive configuration that includes the external system record that references the message sender.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The REST engine considers the information populated in the Accept-Language header attribute. If a single value is provided, the system checks if the application has that language as a supported language in the application. If so, it returns translatable text in that language. The system looks for an entry in the Language table where the Locale field matches the value passed in Accept-Language.

If multiple entries are provided in the Accept-Language, the system uses HTTP content negotiation to select one of the provided values. If no supported language is found for the Accept-Language content, the system returns information in the language of the system user used to make the REST call.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

A new REST service, SCIM User Provisioning (F1-SCIMUser), is provided to support adding, changing, or viewing the details of a user where the API follows the SCIM standard.

The following highlights some of the mapping between the SCIM API and the application's user record:

Provide the required access before using the feature.

The inbound REST web service provided is F1-SCIMUser. Refer to its description along with the help text on the various elements for more information on using the REST service.

You need to define a template user in order to successfully add a User record via this REST service. The template user can be provided in the userType element. Alternatively, you can define the Template User as a parameter to the algorithm F1-OIMUSR (Populate User Data from a "Template" User). Refer to the separate feature "Define Default Template User for User Provisioning" for more information.

System administrators should set/grant users/grant access to the Execute access mode on the CILTUSEP application service for the web service user that calls the new REST web service.

The user record includes a user hash for security reasons. This hash value is calculated using a cryptography key in a given environment. When using Content Migration Assistant to import users from another environment, the process now includes a step to recalculate the user hash value using the target environment's cryptography key.

This update means implementations can import users from one environment to another without getting an error related to the user hash.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

This section describes the new and enhanced user interfaces in this release, including:

The Batch Run Tree page has been converted to a portal, leveraging a more flexible and extendable user interface metaphor. The portal organizes information in a way that makes it easier for you to review and analyze performance and exception information for a batch run.

The following are the main new features supported by the portal:

In addition, a standard Batch Run Query portal is also provided to support search functionality.

This does not impact any extensions.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

There is a new business object for Batch Run and a new Determine business object algorithm linked to the Maintenance Object. The base business object includes all the user interface behavior designed for the new portal. If your implementation has introduced your own CM business object and CM Determine BO algorithm, you should review your business object's configuration and merge it into the base business object.

Upgrade scripts ensure that users with Read access to the existing application service will have access to the new application service associated with the new portal. The table lists the existing and new application services.

 

When a business object based entity is displayed and maintained online, the logic that prepares the data in these flows reside in designated scripts associated with the record's business object. These scripts may be designed to read other entities and call other services in addition to the main entity being processed. A common example is that a transactional object may invoke the related "type" object to get information.

User access in these specific online maintenance flows are now enhanced to focus on the main entity being processed. In the example of the transactional object invoking the related "type" object to get information, the user is not required to have access to the "type" object. Prior to this release, every one of these additional object reads and service calls were also checked for user access (in addition to the main entity being processed). This situation required that the user was granted access to secondary entities, like admin "type" objects and internal services, which inadvertently also enabled access via the main menu.

This does not impact any extensions.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The Bundle Export and Bundle Import search portals supported a broadcast action to view the details of a bundle that deviated from standards. This is replaced by standard work list capability, which allows you to quickly review the details of each bundle from the search results.

Standardizing the export and import bundle query portals allows for a more consistent user experience across all search portals.

This does not impact any extensions.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The Zone Tips sidebar zone was removed from the sidebar. You can now access these tips from the Zone portal. Most of the tips point to topics that are already grouped together and easily accessible from the standard online help documentation for the Zone portal. The allowed list of SQL functions may be viewed from a new zone header action added to the data explorer SQLs zone.

Accessing zone tips via the Zone portal is better integrated with specific portal content, eliminates redundancy with existing standard help information, and assists with uncluttering the sidebar of unnecessary content.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The Batch Jobs Summary zone is now sorted by Start Date/Time, and this zone sort sequence was amended to allow pagination to preserve the start time sort sequences. Previously, the Batch Jobs Summary zone was sorted by batch code, run number, and rerun number and column sorting was lost when navigating to the next and previous pages.

Sorting by start date/time allows for paging through the batch jobs in start time order, which is the preferred order for the majority of users.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The Populate Node algorithm entity now allows business rules to set an indication of whether a tree node should be initially expanded or not. When populated, the indication overrides the setting on the tree node definition. Previously, a tree node could be defined to be initially expanded or not as part of the tree configuration. There are cases where the node should be conditionally expanded based on business rules. For example, to prevent the initial expansion when the number of child nodes exceeds a certain threshold.

Supporting a more flexible method for presenting a tree structure where some nodes are expanded and some not based on business rules allows for a better user experience.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Entities that support override labels typically display both the original and overridden values, except when these labels are maintained as a list. For example, on the Lookup portal, values and their labels are displayed as a list for which the override value (if it exists) is presented instead of the original label. Previously, you had to edit the record to view the original value, and there was no visual cue as to which label was overridden.

Now a list-based display of overridable labels is standardized to show the original and overridden values so that you do not have to edit a record to see the full content.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

When you cancel a process flow, you navigate back to the previous page you were working on. Previously, canceling a process flow resulted in a blank process flow page.

This allows for a more intuitive and efficient user experience.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

By default, the process flow query now displays the current user's in-progress process flows. The user may further bookmark the query as a quicker way to get to these flows. The new My Process Flows query option also supports the ability to delete multiple flows as needed. You can no longer delete another user's process flow.

Previously, the process flow query portal may have been accessed from different parts of the menu by different products. As of this release, it is included in the Tools submenu consistently across all products.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The Download Zone header action links on the Threads zone of the Batch Run portal are now shown only if the corresponding file exists and the user has security access to download the file.

In addition, the Close header action link is only shown when more than one batch job request was submitted for the batch run. When a single batch job exists, its parameters are displayed by default and there is no need to close the zone.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The control data area structure shared by all process flow scripts now includes a list of characteristics. Process flow scripts may populate the list as needed, and the list is saved along with the process flow record by the base product's process flow manager.

Allowing process flow business rules to capture additional details about a flow makes it easier to locate flows in progress that you may want to resume.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

If your implementation uses a custom process flow manager script, you may need to adjust it to handle characteristics in order to take advantage of this functionality. Refer to the base product's process flow manager script for more information.

The sidebar content is organized into Main, Favorites, and Tools sidebars. These are accessible using an icon bar at the bottom of the sidebar.

A portal of type sidebar is introduced for the Main, Favorites, and Tools sidebar. Sidebar zones that represent the user's favorite options are displayed as part of the Favorites sidebar portal and those classified as tools are displayed in the Tools sidebar portal. The remaining zones are displayed as part of the Main sidebar portal and are considered key information.

This enhancement allows context sensitive zones to be directly linked to these sidebar portals and displayed relative to other zones on the portals. These context-sensitive zones can now be managed for user preference like any other zone.

This is the default configuration for new customers, but it is an opt-in feature for upgrading customers.

When enabled, it is recommended that you review you custom sidebar zones. When applicable, move the zones to the favorites or tools sidebar portals to unclutter the main sidebar and keep the focus on only key information.

In addition, the To Do Summary zone is no longer available by default on the sidebar for new installations. The To Do Management and To Do Dashboard portals, introduced in prior releases, provide better tools to manage and review this information, so there is no need to include it on the sidebar by default as well. If you wish to still use this sidebar zone, you can add it as needed. Note that the zone is retained as a custom zone for existing customers.

To enable this feature, complete these steps:

As part of an effort to unclutter the sidebar, this zone is now hidden when it is empty. Previously, the Worklist sidebar zone was always present when enabled regardless of whether it contained a list to manage or not.

This update reduces unnecessary content in the sidebar and improves the user experience.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The application toolbar area has been streamlined to one line to allow for more space for the main display area.

Several changes have been made to the application toolbar.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

An insight class defines the UI context for which insight information should be provided. Prior to this release, the types of insights included in that context were defined by a single insight group associated with that insight class. There are situations where the list of insight types may vary based on some configuration criteria like CIS division for example. As of this release, action method rules may be used to determine the insight class to use when multiple are defined for an insight class.

Allowing multiple insight groups for an insight class and determining the appropriate one to use by action method rules supports more flexible insight configurations.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Prior to this release, insights were sorted alphabetically by insight type code. In this release, insights are sorted by their severity category when applicable, followed by the relative sequence of the insight type within the insight group definition and only then by the insight type code.

Sorting insights by severity and a configurable display order allows for a better user experience.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The following additional SVG icons are provided for use in contextual insights, trees, and other user interface features that support SVG icons.

 

Additional icons enhance the user experience for displayed information. These have no impact on existing customizations.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Schema based UI already supports an implicit time zone and daylight-saving conversion to and from the element's storage and display time zones when the element is stored in standard time. As part of this capability, the element's time zone name is also presented along with its value on a display map for clarity.

Many date/time fields are historically stored in legal time and therefore could not have benefited from this functionality. As of this release, this functionality is also supported for elements stored in legal time.

New schema attributes legalTime= and legalTimeRef= has been introduced to explicitly identify date/time elements as stored in legal time and specify their storage time zone.

The schema based user interface engine has been enhanced to properly display and maintain such elements based on their time zone schema definition. Similar to existing functionality for elements stored in standard time.

Similarly, inbound and outbound message functionality has been enhanced to support time zone conversion for elements explicitly marked as stored in legal time. Similar to existing functionality for elements stored in standard time.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

In this release, the Switch Language zone in the sidebar is now only displayed if your implementation has more than one language enabled.

In previous releases, this zone was always visible to any user that had the appropriate security for it, even if your implementation only had one language enabled.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

There is now a system-wide option to turn on a compact view of the user interface. This option reduces the amount of whitespace on the rendered pages.

Enabling the compact view for all users in your implementation allows for more information to be displayed without scrolling.

To enable this feature, complete these steps:

All user interfaces are now showing labels as right justified as specified in the Redwood user interface standards. Previously, there was an inconsistency on which side user interface elements were justified.

In addition, the spacing of the labels has been increased to reduce the instances of label wrapping.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The File Integration Type portal lists all the record types included in the configuration along with key details about each record type. Previously, the only way to review the entire record type definition was to edit it, which did not support navigation to various settings like data area and algorithms.

For this release, a standard File Integration Record portal is provided for reviewing and maintaining a record type definition. The portal also supports a list view of all record types included in the same File Integration Type configuration. The list of record types on the File Integration Type portal was enhanced to support navigation to the new portal.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Upgrade scripts ensure that users with Read access to the File Integration Type portal will have access to the new application service associated with the new File Integration Record portal. The table below lists the existing and new application services.

If there is a portal where this information is not needed, the system provides a new configuration to suppress the header. This is only recommended if there is one zone on the portal so the header title and collapsed option are not needed.

Suppressing an explicit map zone's header area allows you to have more vertical space when the page only has one zone and the standard actions on the zone header are not relevant.

To suppress a map zone header, complete these steps:

You can configure a portal to indicate that the page title should be hidden. You can do this by setting a portal option with type Page Title Visibility and an option value of 'false'. Be aware of the following:

Configuration to suppress the page title and page actions allows for portal-based pages to utilize more vertical space if the title and the page actions are not needed.

To suppress a map zone header, complete these steps:

You can configure a portal-based page to indicate that a tab should never appear. This is an example of the Tab Menu Area where tabs appear on the To Do Entry page.

You would only want to hide the tab menu if the page has one tab (the Main tab), and you would like to suppress the whole Tab Menu Area and provide more vertical space. You can use the Tab Menu/Tab Visibility option type with a value of 'false' to make this change.

Additionally, you can define a service script that checks a condition and only display the tab if the conditions are met. For example, on the Business Object page, the Hierarchy tab is only applicable if the business object being viewed is part of a hierarchy. You can use the syntax ss='serviceScriptName' input=[ ] output=booleanValue to configure this option. Similar to zone visibility configuration, the input supports one or more name value pairs: input=[ELEMENT_NAME=ELEMENT_REF ELEMENT_NAME=ELEMENT_REF], where ELEMENT_NAME is the target XPath in the service script to populate and ELEMENT_REF is either a hard-coded value surrounded by single quotes or any portal or global context field. For example, a script to check if a business object has any hierarchy may have the option type populated as follows: ss='CM-CheckHierarchy' input=[bo=BUS_OBJ_CD] output=shouldShowTab.

See the feature description above for details.

This section describes the new and enhanced miscellaneous features in this release, including:

As more integrations use the Locale as the standard method to determine a language, the product is adjusting the value defined for the default language row (ENG - English) to use the generic locale "en", instead of the more specific "en-US".

The default record's configuration is now aligned with the typical browser configuration for English.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Copy and delete actions are available in the SQLs zone when maintaining a data explorer zone. These actions are only allowed in an environment that owns the zone.

This makes it easier to configure queries.

This does not impact any extensions.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

An explicit definition of the functional role associated with portal and zones is provided.

Assigning the functional role of portal and zones in metadata allows for a more streamlined conversion to corresponding Redwood templates and other role-related configuration enhancements in the future.

This does not impact any extensions.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

By default, an attachment is uploaded and stored in the database along with its entire content. Prior to this release, the process of uploading very large content like videos etc. was often limited by memory constraints. In addition, storing large content in the database is costly.

As of this release, the upload process has been enhanced to support an optional configurable threshold above which content is stored in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage and a link to the file is kept on the attachment record.

To enable this functionality, define the object storage attachment location and threshold size in the General System Configuration feature configuration. In addition, you may also use the same feature configuration to set a maximum aggregate size for concurrent attachment uploads for performance reasons.

This feature is an opt in. If such configuration is provided then large attachments are stored in Object Storage, else they are stored in the database subject to existing resource limitations if any.

The following are known limitations with storing content in Object Storage:

To enable this feature, complete these steps:

Previously, introducing a new maintenance portal would require manual effort to generate a corresponding maintenance zone, a maintenance script, and an Add portal action. In this release, these artifacts can be generated along with the new maintenance portal.

Generating more of the artifacts needed to support a maintenance portal saves implementation time and increases product quality.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The Lookup portal is enhanced to simplify the review of lookup fields that represent standard options by providing a navigation for each lookup value to its corresponding Option Configuration extendable lookup record.

This improves usability by providing a navigation to additional option configuration information for applicable lookup fields.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

A new platform ensures you are current with the latest technologies and compliant with support and industry standards.

The following changes to the platform were implemented:

Platform changes are necessary to keep the products and service current and compliant with support and industry standards.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Refer to the installation documentation available for your product and the Certification Matrix for Oracle Utilities Products (Doc Id: 1454143.1) available from My Oracle Support for additional information.

Previously, including large attachments in emails was rejected due to content size or caused performance issues. This release supports the ability to share attachments as links instead of sharing their content.

A new Maximum Email Attachment Size feature option was added to the General System Configuration feature type to give you the flexibility of restricting the size of actual attachment content embedded in emails. When populated, attachments with their content stored in the database that exceed the size limit are provided as links when attached to emails.

Attachments that are not stored in the database, such as those stored in object storage or their content is referenced via an external URL, are shared only as links when attached to emails.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Documents residing in an external system can be made available as attachments using a new External URL business object. When adding an attachment, the user can specify a file name (as before) or a URL to a document in an external system.

This allows users to internally reference such attachments as needed to support their business requirements.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Groovy was upgraded from 3.0.7 to 3.0.17.

The Groovy upgrade was necessary for Java 17 compatibility.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Groovy has updated its compile time type interface validation system and added some restrictions. Some scripts and/or code may need to be updated to fix issues encountered at the compilation stage. It is strongly advised to run Compile All Groovy Scripts (F1-CAGVY) and remediate any compilation errors before the upgrade so that existing compilation errors are not attributed to this groovy upgrade.

This section provides information on functionality that has been removed, is no longer supported by Oracle Utilities Application Framework v25.4, or is planned for removal.

This is a list of functionality / system data that Oracle already removed from the Oracle Utilities Application Framework.

Removed the OPE engine and as an alternative to the Redwood user experience.

With the introduction of the new Batch Run portal, Batch Day Dashboard and Batch Analytics, the usefulness of the Batch Run Statistics zone is limited and was removed from Oracle Utilities Application Framework.

The Batch Run Statistics portal provided additional information about batch runs, but some functionality on the portal is related to capturing additional information from an external tool. This information is stored in a Fact record. Support for capturing additional information from an external tool will be discontinued in a future release.

The Batch Run Statistics portal was accessible from the original Batch Job Submission fixed page. Most functionality in the Batch Run Statistics portal is now visible in the Batch Run portal. There were additional functionality on the Batch Run Statistics portal related to capturing additional information from an external tool. This information is not supported in a future release.

Previously, the product supported the ability to switch from the Opattern Enterprise user experience to the Redwood user experience. Going forward, only the Redwood user experience is supported.

Replaced by portal-based user interface.

Replaced by portal-based user interface.

This is a list of functionality / system data that Oracle plans to deprecate in a future release.

The system provides a user out of the box: SYSUSER. In an upcoming release, the product is going to limit the ability to log in using SYSUSER. Implementations should plan to review all their processes and identify ones where SYSUSER is used for system authentication and authorization and instead define a proper user for the process.

In addition, other system delivered users provided as template users will limit login access in an upcoming release.

Currently all base delivered zone types support a parameter called Zone Header Map, which can be used to override the zone's header area. The reasons for using this may be to have more control over Actions in the header and to be able to suppress the header.

In a future release, we are no longer going to support defining a zone header map. Implementations should review any zones that are currently defining a custom zone header map. If the map is used to implement actions, use the existing zone action parameters to implement this functionality. If the map is used to suppress the header, an upcoming release will provide zone configuration to achieve this functionality.

In the future, the product plans to remove support for the Cube Viewer. Note that this includes support for the F1-COLOR characteristic type that is only used by Cube Viewer. The product uses the F1-Color extendable lookup going forward.

In the current release, the product supports guiding BPA scripts that surf on top of one or more application pages and interact with these pages in parallel to script execution. This approach is considered legacy functionality and as such limited to fixed pages. It does not work with portal pages. In the future, the product plans to remove support for such scripts.

In a future release, the F1UIVIEW application service related to the function to switch the user interface to an older user experience will be removed.

Workflow and notification functionality was an early way to support exchanging messages with an external system (notification) and providing a configurable process for acting on incoming messages (workflow). In more recent years, the functionality for managing external messages is supported using Outbound Message and Inbound Web Service functionality. In addition, there are several features to support processing incoming messages. Service scripts can handle simple use cases. For more complicated processes, the service task or other business object driven objects are available.

The metadata and database tables related to this feature will be removed in a future release. Note that only a portion of the functionality for this feature is managed by Oracle Utilities Application Framework. Most of the functionality is supported in the Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing product.

Removal of support for the Mobile Application Framework has already been announced in a previous release. However, there is metadata still included in the application related to this functionality.

The metadata and Java packages will be removed in a future release. CM Java code that references services or methods in the ../mobile/.. package should be reviewed.

The product is removing all scripts, algorithm types, and algorithms that performed validation rules on the K1-SignatureKeyRing business object. The algorithms have been removed from the BO configuration. There are requirements to expand the use of a signature key ring beyond the current implementation for object file storage and the existing validations are not applicable to other planned use cases.

The following items will be removed in a future release.

The UI metadata related to fixed pages that have been converted to portals will be removed in a future release. The navigation keys listed are related to each maintenance page. The related UI program component data will also be removed. Note that the metadata related to the search pages will not be removed at this time in case they are used on other fixed pages.

The following metadata is no longer in use and will be removed in a future release:

 

Entries in the Managed Content table related to XSL should be using the XSLTC managed content type and not the XSLT managed content type. In a future release, the XSLT managed content type will no longer be supported.

The original URL supplied for invoking IWS based REST services included the IWS Service name in its makeup. Support for this will continue for backward compatibility purposes, but it will be deprecated in a future release. You should adjust your existing integrations to use the currently supported URL.

There are several known issues with the functionality of the "append" option in pagination. It is recommended that you do not use this pagination setting.

The Service Catalog Configuration (master configuration) enables you to define subordinate servers. Defining subordinate servers is no longer applicable for the Oracle Integration Cloud.

As part of the Oracle policy to move all user experiences to Redwood, the legacy user experience known as OPE (OPower Enterprise) will be disabled and replaced with Redwood from Oracle Utilities Application Framework 24.2.0.0.0 (24B) and above. As part of that change, the following will be implemented:

This change prepares the products for the implementation of the new Oracle rendering engine, which will be transparent to customers, which is optimized for the Redwood user experience to help deliver innovative and intuitive user experiences for our customers that are consistent across Oracle's portfolio of products.

In the original implementation of configuration tools, the main framework maintenance BPA (F1-MainProc) did not perform a Read of the BO when a pre-processing script was linked to the BO via options. The pre-processing script was responsible for the Read.

In a subsequent release, a BO Read was added in F1-MainProc (even if a pre-processing script existed) to resolve a UI Hint issue related to child business objects. This solution introduced a problem only visible for specific scenarios and a different fix has been introduced. The new fix made the BO Read unnecessary in F1-MainProc. Because there are many pre-processing scripts that are properly performing the Read of the BO, ideally the BO Read should be removed from F1-MainProc so that multiple reads are not performed. However, there may have been pre-processing scripts introduced after the BO Read was included in F1-MainProc that were coded to not perform a BO read in the pre-processing script. Due to this situation, the BO Read is still performed as part of the processing of F1-MainProc.

When a pre-processing script exists, we plan to remove the BO Read from F1-MainProc logic. You should review your custom pre-processing scripts that are linked to your BO options to ensure that they properly perform a Read of your BO.