This section describes enhancements, system data details and deprecation notices in Oracle Utilities Application Framework v4.5.0.1.1 including:

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

Detailed Description was added as an optional attribute for application services. For most product delivered application services, the Secured Objects zone, which highlights which metadata objects in the system are linked to the application service, provides enough information to security administrators for them to understand what features are controlled by this record. There are a small number of application services that are referenced from JavaScript or Java, which are not discoverable by the Secured Objects zone. For these types of application services, a detailed description helps provide more information about the purpose and use of the record. For these examples and any other use case where the product has determined that additional information is warranted, the detailed description for such application services includes a detailed description.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

When a user's session times out, the underlying page is changed so that the underlying information is no longer visible. The user sees an alert that the session has timed out and they should click OK to log into the application again.

This ensures that possibly sensitive information is no longer visible.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

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

The Algorithm page has been converted to a portal, leveraging a more flexible and extendable user interface metaphor. The portal includes a References tab that list all entities associated with an algorithm. Knowing where an algorithm is used provides you with a better view of your custom rules and will help you target your testing. This portal improves efficiency for building and maintaining algorithms for developers without impacting extensions.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

A new business object (BO) for Algorithm 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:

While application security can be configured at the granular level of an application service and its access modes, it is more intuitive to review access rights to broader application components such as menu lines, dashboard zones, batch processes, and more. A new Application Security Query portal supports various options for reviewing this configuration across users, user groups, and various types of secured components. This portal improves efficiency for building and maintaining security without impacting customizations.

To enable this feature, provide access to the Application Security Query (F1APSECQ) application service.

See the Security Enhancements training.

The Application Service Query portal is enhanced to support a new query option that lists application service by the release they were introduced in. The recording of this information is only available from this release going forward, so it is only applicable to new application service going forward. This makes the uptake step of reviewing new application services easier. This change is transparent to customizations as it improves efficiency for building and maintaining security.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

See the Security Enhancements training.

The maintenance of the list of characteristic values for a pre-defined characteristic type has been moved to a separate zone on the portal rather than a list built into the main section. The new zone better handles use cases where a large number of characteristic values exist. The zone includes paging and supports filters for more easily finding and maintaining individual entries.

View and maintain characteristic values for a pre-defined characteristic type in a separate zone with filters and paging support.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

There is a new external reference column in the Currency table. This allows implementations to define currencies that use a currency code that is more than three characters. This may be required to support crypto currencies with codes of more than three characters. Internalization currencies and the product's current code field are still three characters.

Be aware of the following:

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The Currency page has been converted from the "list" maintenance fixed page style to a portal-driven user interface page. An "all-in-one" metaphor is used, providing a list of the existing currency codes along with the standard ability to broadcast, edit, delete, duplicate, and add a new record.

The Currency page has been converted to a portal to provide you with a more flexible and extendable user experience.

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. This table lists the existing and new application services.

 

The dashboard location values were adjusted to reflect the behavior in a right-to-left language. The values are now 'Before' and 'After', which reflect the location of the dashboard relative to the location of the main page display.

Previously, the values were 'Left' and 'Right' with the product behavior based on a 'left to right' language. For a user with a 'right to left' language, the product was reversing the order of the page, including the location of the dashboard. The updated values now reflect the behavior for both types of languages.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Maintain display icon information using a standard portal.

The Display Icon Reference page has been converted to a portal to provide you with a more flexible and extendable user experience.

The display icon reference page has been converted from the 'list' maintenance fixed page style to a portal-driven user interface page. It includes a query zone where you can search by the code or the description. The image of the icon is displayed in the results.

Any page that includes a search for a display icon, such as Tree or Insight Type, uses the same query and also benefits from the enhancement to include the icon's image.

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. This table lists the existing and new application services.

 

The Geographic Type page has been converted to a portal to provide you with a more flexible and extendable user experience. An "all-in-one" metaphor is used, providing a list of the existing geographic types along with the standard ability to broadcast, edit, delete, duplicate, and add a new record. This portal improves productivity for adding and maintaining geographical types without impacting extensions.

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. This table lists the existing and new application services.

 

Note that any existing bookmarks for this page will take the you to the previous version of the page. Because this was a list-based page previously, the assumption is that you did not have any specific record bookmarked. If desired, you can delete the existing bookmark from the Bookmark dashboard zone and add a new bookmark of a specific geographic type.

The Field page can now add or update the corresponding lookup field record. The only remaining reason to navigate to the Lookup page is for deletion or revision control purposes. Before this release, defining a lookup field involved setting the lookup field itself in the Lookup page and then adding it again in the Field page. This provides you with a seamless experience to maintain lookup fields. It improves efficiency for developers without impacting customizations.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The Inbound Web Service Query portal is enhanced to support search by information related to REST operations and help text configuration. This provides additional query options for searching inbound web services. This is transparent to customizations as it improves efficiency for building and maintaining inbound web services for developers.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The Language page has been converted from a "list" maintenance fixed page style to a portal-driven user interface page. An "all-in-one" metaphor is used, providing a list of the existing language codes along with the standard ability to broadcast, edit, delete, duplicate, and add a new record.

The Language page has been converted to a portal to provide you with a more flexible and extendable user experience.

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. This table lists the existing and new application services.

 

The Lookup page has been converted to a portal, leveraging a more flexible and extendable user interface metaphor. The portal supports navigating to the corresponding field associated with the lookup. This makes it easier to access the information. This portal improves efficiency for building and maintaining lookups for developers without impacting extensions.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

A new business object for Lookup 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 the user to the previous version of the page. You need to take the following actions to move the bookmark to the new page:

The Menu page has been converted from the fixed page style to a portal-driven user interface page.

The Menu portal includes an Application Security tab for reviewing and configuration application security information for any of the menu lines.

This functionality was previously released on a separate Menu Application Security portal that was accessible via a dashboard zone associated with the fixed style menu page. With the conversion of the menu page to a portal, all menu configuration options, including application security setup, are provided in one place.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

An upgrade script updates all user groups that currently have access to the existing Menu page application service CILEMNUP to have the same access to the new portal application service F1MENU. Note that any existing bookmarks for this page will take the user to the previous version of the page. You should delete thosebookmark sand add them again as needed.

Opening online help from a Framework-based application now brings you to the relevant documentation page in Oracle Help Center. This removes the need to manage and deploy the help engine used in past releases, and reduces the overall deployment times significantly.

You can use standard browser functions to bookmark pages and page headings, and use your browser's option to open the content in a new tab or open it in a new window. Note that because the help launches as a standard browser window, the default behavior is that it will open in a new tab in the same window. Once the help is launched, you can set in your browser to move the tab location or separate it to its own window as desired going forward. There were also some enhancements to the online help to make navigating the content easier.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

If you delete the part of the URL following the product name, you will be taken to the page that contains all the documentation for that product. For example, removing 22C/ccs-user-guides/ from https://docs.oracle.com/en/industries/energy-water/customer-cloud-service/22c/ccs-user-guides/ takes you to the main documentation page for the Oracle Utilities Customer Cloud Service where you can access release readiness materials, cloud service guides, video training, and more.

The Phone Type page has been converted to a portal to provide you with a more flexible and extendable user experience.. An "all-in-one" metaphor is used, providing a list of the existing phone types along with the standard ability to broadcast, edit, delete, duplicate, and add a new record. This portal improves productivity when adding or maintaining phone types without impacting extensions.

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.

 

Note that any existing bookmarks for this page will take the user to the previous version of the page. Because this was a list-based page previously, the assumption is that you did not have any specific record bookmarked. If desired, you can delete the existing bookmark from the Bookmark dashboard zone and add a new bookmark of a specific phone type.

The shortcut key for navigating from one tab of a page to the next tab on the same page is now Alt+F2. In the following example, if you are on the Main tab of the User page and wish to go to the To Do Roles tab, you could use Alt+F2 to get there.

To go to the previous tab, use Shift+Alt+F2:

Previously, the shortcut keys for this functionality were F2 and Shift+F2, respectively. OJet uses F2 for some of its keyboard navigation and since the product uses OJet widgets for base functionality like Trees and Insights, the shortcut keys were adjusted to be able to take advantage of the built-in OJet features.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Previously, the Unified Search supported a single search option for a user. Now a user may switch between search options to which they have access. In addition, information about the current search option, which filters and hints it supports, and a recent search history, are all new features easily available to assist the user.

The unified search is enhanced to provide help on each filter and hint, and allow you to toggle between multiple search options you can access.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Refer to Unified Search Enhancements training.

The User Group page was replaced with a standard query portal that supports additional search filters by application service and user.

The User Group Maintenance page was replaced with a standard portal with the ability to use mass actions to:

You can also review application components that are secured by the user group. This is similar to the Application Security Query portal which was also introduced in this release.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

A new business object for User Group 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 the user to the previous version of the page. You need to take the following actions to move the bookmark to the new page:

See the Security Enhancements training.

The Work List zone is populated whenever you click the Work List icon in the header of a data explorer results list.

The following enhancements were made to the Work List zone:

No steps are required to enable this feature.

See the Enhanced Work List Zone training.

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

Personal Identifiable Information (PII) that is not encrypted may require special handling when it is exported out of the application and written to files. Depending on how the export file is used, this type of information may need to be anonymize before being written to the file. Now, Generalized Data Export and Content Migration Assistant (CMA) batch processes support the anonymization of PII data based on customer-defined redaction rules.

A redaction rule defines the type of information that should be redacted, where it resides, and what function to apply to the value to anonymize it. For example, a phone number field may be redacted by applying a function that replaces all digits with 0. A library of common redaction functions is provided as an extendable lookup, and you may extend the list as needed. Sample redaction rules are provided as accelerator data, and you can update the rules as needed.

As a way of tracking and identifying fields that may contain sensitive information, a new searchable PII Class option now appears in the Field record definition.

The export tools were enhanced as follows:

Once redaction rules are defined in an environment, these processes will automatically anonymize data by default.

A new Obfuscation Configuration portal provides a consolidated view of all masking, encryption, and redaction rules.

Provide the required access before using the feature. Details are in the Access Requirements section.

Refer to the Redaction Rules training.

System administrators should set/grant users/grant access as follows:

By default, the initial export batch process exports the entire data for an entity. In some situations, typically around high volume historical data, there is a need to restrict the export to more recent data (for example, the last few months of data).

The initial export batch process now supports an optional batch parameter named "Restrict By Date" that allows utilities to constrain the history they export. The parameter references the date field to use and the requested time frame in terms of number of days prior to business date. Refer to the Generalized Initial Export Template (F1-GEIXP) batch control for more information.

Note that excluding records from export should be carefully considered as this may result in data discrepancies when the excluded data is referenced on other entities. Refer to online documentation for additional considerations when using this option.

The option is only applicable to specific entities that have a qualifying reference date and the time frame for export may vary for each customer. Therefore, the new parameter is not added to any base product Initial Export batch control aside of the template batch control for documentation purposes. Customers can clone the base product batch control for a specific entity and add the parameter to their custom version.

To enable this feature, complete these steps:

When the list of entities to add or edit export settings for is too large, the transaction may time out. This situation often required the user to repeat the update in smaller batches. Now, by default, the application attempts to make the update in smaller batches. This minimizes timeout situations and makes them less problematic.

In addition, in some rare situations, the process to enable an entity for ongoing export may leave the entity not fully configured. Entities that are not fully configured are now explicitly highlighted as not configured, and they are listed at the top of the Export Entities zone. The user can then repeat the enablement action for these entities to resolve the problem.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

By default, the Generalized Data Export batch process does not export maintenance object log tables due to performance and data volume considerations. Also, log records are omitted from export because they do not usually contain useful business information. However, there are entities for which log records have analytical value. As of this release, a new Export Log Tables maintenance object option allows an entity to be configured to explicitly include its log records when exported.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The Generalized Ongoing Export (F1-GEEXO) batch process now keeps a backup of all entity keys exported by a specific batch run number in a designated backup table. A new Restore Generalized Export Keys (F1-GERST) batch process assists in recovering from such lost file situation. The new process restores the keys of all entities that were exported during a specific batch run, from the backup table back to the ongoing changes queue, causing them to be exported again on the next ongoing export batch run.

Note that this method does not restore the exact content of the original file that was lost. That content cannot be reproduced. Instead, this process ensures that the entities that were included in the lost file would be extracted again.

Previously, the Generalized Ongoing Export (F1-GEEXO) batch process did not keep a record of which entities were exported on a specific batch run. In cases where an export file is lost or damaged, there was no way to identify which entities should be exported again.

Provide the required access before using the feature. Details are in the Access Requirements section.

System administrators should set/grant users/grant access to the F1-GERST application service for any user that should be able to run this batch job.

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

Previously, the To Do Management portal restricted queries to a specific To Do Type. Now either a To Do Type or an Assigned User are required. As a result, there is now support for management of entries assigned to a user across multiple to do types.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Refer to the To Do Processing training.

The To Do Dashboard portal is enhanced to provide a detailed list of the entries selected by the charts on a new Details tab.

The new tab supports further filtering and actions a user can take to manage the selected entries. This provides the same functionality supported by the To Do Management portal.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Refer to the To Do Processing training.

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

The product captures a standard output file for each thread. If there are errors found in any thread, an error file is also produced which is accessible from the Batch Run Tree page. You can now capture log files for steps performed prior to the thread execution, for example in the "get job work" step.

The batch framework writes some basic logging information for the standard output file. The format of the file name produced is batch control + run number + re-run number + date-time.stdout. You will see an 'stdout' file for the batch run as well as one for each thread. Individual batch jobs may now also write log statements to the new stdout file at the batch run level.

If a batch job encounters an error in the steps before the thread execution, for example in the "Select Records" step, an error file is also produced. The format is batch control + run number + re-run number + date-time.stderr.

These files are also accessible from the Batch Run Tree page.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

When submitting a batch job via any method, the system compares the provided parameters to those defined on the batch control.

This feature improves the usability of the REST API used to submit a batch job (the 'submit' operation for the F1-SubmitJob inbound web service). Previously, the caller of this API was required to determine the batch parameters from the batch control ahead of time. With this enhancement, callers can submit the request for the batch submission and only supply the parameter name/parameter value for optional parameters where a value is desired or for required parameters when the value differs from the default value on the batch control. Any optional parameters where no value is needed or required parameters where the default value from the batch control is acceptable do not need to be provided.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Any implementation that is calling the REST API for submitting a batch job or submits a batch job in some other manner (besides online) can review their code to reduce steps for setting the batch parameters, if desired.

When sending the latest data export file using the Generalized Data Extract functionality, the manifest file produced with an extracted file now includes the previous successful batch run number and the previous manifest file name. The receiving systems can use this information to compare with the most recent file received to determine if any expected file is missing.

This allows for quick detection of issues when information is regularly extracted to an external system.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The Plug-in Driven Upload process (template batch control is F1-PDUPL) now supports the following variables in the Processed File Extension parameter in addition to text:

The parameter must still end with text to streamline the existing system check, which ensures that the name of the file to upload does not include the text included in the Processed File Extension parameter. The User ID used for the parameter is the submission user instead of the "batch user."

Also, the Plug-in Driven Extract process (template batch control is F1-PDBEX) now supports the additional variables {USR} or {userId} as part of the file name. When these variables are specified, the submission user's ID is used.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The plug-in driven extract process has been enhanced to allow for the Process Records algorithm to return one or more file names to write the data to. This allows for use cases where the data should be segregated by a business value. It also supports indicating a different file name for each schema returned by the algorithm, allowing for one unit of work to contribute to more than one file. Several use cases informed this enhancement:

If a batch job is multi-threaded, each thread continues to produce its own set of files. For the service provider use case above, a multi-threaded process should still result in a file per service provider. However, for the Division and Person examples, each thread may include files for the same division or person type. The option to concatenate files is still supported and will concatenate files where the file name is the same except for the thread number. The existing limitations for the use of file concatenation still apply. This is documented in the batch control parameter description in the metadata.

To enable this feature, refer to Extract Record Processing in the Flexible File Name section of the Oracle Utilities Framework Administrative User Guide for more information.

The submitbatchREST.sh Linux script enables implementations to submit batch jobs when using external batch schedulers. This script uses the Submit Operation of the F1-SubmitJob REST service to create an entry in the Batch Job Submission table, which the batch daemon polls to pick up and run the batch job. The script also uses the Get Operation of the F1-SubmitJob REST service to periodically poll the system to retrieve the "Get Batch Job" or "Batch Run" details to provide status updates until the completion of the batch job.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The script accepts various parameters, including parameters for all the fields available to populate when submitting a batch job online using the Batch Job Submission page.

Information about the REST URI associated with the Batch Submission web service and the user name and password may be provided as parameters or may be determined using environment variables.

There is a parameter to indicate how often to poll for the batch job status.

Refer to the Command Line Utilities section of the Oracle Utilities Server Administration Guide for more information.

Exchanging and signing encrypted files requires the sender and recipient to share keys. The system needs to record the public keys provided by external parties and generate public/private key pairs so the public keys may be exchanged when encrypting or signing files.

A new public encryption key ring business object (F1-ExtKeyRing) allows the public keys provided by the recipients of encrypted files to be stored. The key ring also captures the external system ID and external reference of the system receiving the encrypted files. A new encryption key pair business object (F1-InternalEncryptionKey) allows private/public key pairs to be generated and stored using standard PGP format. The new internal key pair is classified as 'File Encryption / Signing'. Key rings previously classified as 'Signature' are now referred to as 'RSA Signature'. A new flag has been added to key ring to categorize key rings as external, internal, or OAuth.

The lifecycle of a key ring key has been changed to provide more flexibility when rotating keys. Internal generated keys are created in a status of pending. They may be manually activated when the public key has been shared with the applicable third parties. When a external public key is added, the new key is automatically activated and the previously active key is expired. Expired keys may be manually inactivated. Note that inactive keys can no longer be activated again.

Batch processing has been enhanced to implement file encryption and decryption using PGP standards. Digital signatures are also supported, using the standard 'Sign' option. New batch parameters have been introduced to specify the external and internal keys to be used for encryption and/or signing and the file adapter automatically encrypts, decrypts and signs the file data based on the existence of these parameters.

To enable this feature, refer to Understanding Background Processes in the Parameters Supplied To Background Processes section of the Oracle Utilities Application Framework Administrative User Guide for more information.

See the Security Enhancements training.

System administrators should set/grant users/grant access to the F1-EXTENCRYPTKEYBOAS, F1-EXTENCRYPTADDKEY and F1-INTKEYENCRBOAS application services.

The following batch control plug-in spots are single algorithm plug-in spots:

If the product provides batch controls with algorithms for any of the above plug-in spots plugged in, you can now override the base algorithm by plugging in your own custom algorithm using a higher sequence. The system uses the algorithm with the highest sequence.

Previously, if a base product batch control was provided with algorithms for any of the above plug-in spots, you were not able to override the batch control algorithm. You could only clone the entire batch control if you wanted to override any of the provided algorithms.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

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

The action of a record is now provided to the MO Audit plug-in spot. For business use cases where the algorithm should perform different logic based on whether the record is added, changed, or deleted, this information simplifies algorithm code. Previously, algorithms with this requirement had to determine whether the record was new, changed, or deleted themselves.

MO Audit algorithms now receive the action for the impacted object simplifying logic that may differ based on the action.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The system supports a malware scan algorithm that is called when adding an attachment. This uses the "Attachment Malware Scan" System Event for on the Algorithms tab of the Installation Options - Framework portal. If an algorithm is plugged into this spot, it is called every time an attachment is uploaded, regardless of the method. In addition, the product has supplied a base algorithm that calls ClamAV. The ClamAV is not provided. Implementations need to separately install that software. If your implementation prefers to use a different malware scanning software, you can implement your own algorithm and plug it into the Installation Options.

Scanning attachments for malware before they are uploaded allows you to prevent harmful information from getting loaded to the system.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Note that if you use ClamAV, there are properties to configure to indicate the host and port for the software.

The Index tab on the Table portal now shows the base product-owned indexes. This allows for developers and implementers to view the information about the product delivered indexes.

Previously, the index information was only visible in the database. Also, in a previous release, metadata tables were added for defining indexes associated with a Table, however the new index metadata tables were not populated with the based product delivered indexes.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

A new Status Reasons REST API (F1-StatusReasons) allows an external user interface application to retrieve valid reasons to be presented to a user when they perform an action that transitions an entity to a new status.

User interface applications like Visual Builder can use a new API for presenting valid reasons for transitioning an entity to a new status.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The characteristic mapping maintenance object (MO) is enhanced to allow for future support of mapping identifier values as well. As part of this effort, the maintenance object and the UI portal and many of the related artifacts are renamed to be more generic: Analytics Attribute Mapping.

Characteristic Mapping continues to be a business object for this MO and no changes exist for that functionality.

The newly rebranded Analytics Attribute Mapping table now includes new columns to support mapping of identifier values. There is a new business object visible in this release: F1-IDMapping. This business object captures the data needed to configure mapping of a given identifier type and value defined in a child table of an MO to a user defined field for a target dimension for the parent table of that MO. Note however that the changes to Oracle Utilities Analytics Visualization (OUAV) to support the identifier mapping are not supplied in this release. You may choose to define the metadata for the identifier mapping but they will not be used by OUAV at this time.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The new business object uses the same application service as the Characteristic Mapping business object. (F1-CHARMAPBOAS). This application service description is changed to "Operational Analytics Mapping BOs" reflect its broader purpose.

The various debugging tools that are enabled when the URL includes the debug=true parameter have been moved to a slide out panel enabled by a new 'bug' icon. The options visible to you when the debug parameter is turned on depend on whether your implementation is cloud or on-premise and your individual security rights.

In addition, the product has provided a new menu entry in the Help menu: Enable | Disable Debug. If you have access to the security application service for this menu entry, you can turn on or off debug without changing the URL parameter.

Provide the required access before using the feature. Details are in the Access Requirements section.

Security is only needed for the menu entry. Using the debug=true parameter in the URL functions the same as before with respect to security.

Refer to the Debug Mode section of the Oracle Utilities Application Framework Administrative Guide for more information.

System administrators should grant users access to the application service F1OUDBUG.

A "Dropdown Lists" (F1-DropdownLists) REST API retrieves data needed for building one or more drop-downs. Information for a drop-down includes a list of valid codes and their corresponding descriptions.

The web service supports the following types of drop-down data sources:

User interface applications like Visual Builder (VB) may use a new API for retrieving data displayed as drop-downs.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The product provides a comprehensive infrastructure that supports user interface rendering of hierarchical information for a specific context based on configurable tree definitions. For example, it can present a tree view of entities related to an account. Now a new "Expand Tree" REST API (F1-ExpandTree) allows an external user interface application to retrieve hierarchical information for a specific context based on the same tree configuration. The information provided by the web service focuses on presentation content and includes minimal visualization recommendations, allowing the external application to render each tree node as per its own configuration and rules. Since they are application specific, the information also does not include action-related settings.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The new Extensions Dashboard portal provides a high-level summary of all utility-owned entities and extensions made to base product entities. Information is summarized by maintenance object and allows the user to view the specific entities for a specific maintenance object and navigate to the respective page or portal for more information. With this information, utilities can better assess the necessary testing when planning for product upgrades and investigate the removal of extensions when upgrading to reduce costs.

Make the feature accessible by assigning or updating privileges and/or job roles.

Refer to the Extensions Dashboard Portal training.

System administrators should set or grant users access to the F1CMEXT application service.

The HTML editor on the UI Map/Schema tab has been updated to use a syntax highlighter to make it easier to review and update HTML.

This makes it easier to review and update the HTML.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The HTML5 standard requires the use of the <TH> element within a table row when it is being used as the row header (<th scope="row"></th>). Previously, these elements were allowed to use a <TD> element for the row header.

For tables that are generated by Oracle Utilities Application Framework (Data Explorers, standard UI Map grids, and more), the HTML is automatically updated to match Oracle standards. If you are creating a table manually, a change is not required but it is recommend you update your HTML for better accessibility.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

While this update will generally not require any changes, there is the possibility that a problem may occur if you have a specific type of code within your product. If you are gathering an array of <TD> elements, then the index may have changed (or not exist any more). For example:

This will no longer return the same number of elements, as one of the <TD> elements may now be a <TH>. You will need to adjust any code to account for the new index number. We would recommend not using this technique as referring directly to the column number (myRow.col[3]) or applying a class name query (myRow.querySelector('.specialColumn')) is safer and more "future-proof". Additionally, if you have applied any custom styling to <TD> elements, this may need to be updated to include <TH> elements in a non <THEAD> row.

The product already provides a comprehensive infrastructure that supports user interface rendering of various types of insights for specific contexts. For examples, billing insights about an account, person, and more.

A new "Insights" REST API (F1-Insights) allows an external user interface application to retrieve insight information for a specific context based on the same insight configuration. The information provided by the web service focuses on insight content and includes minimal visualization recommendation, allowing the external application to render the insights as per its own configuration and rules. For the same reason, the information does not include action-related settings because they are application specific.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Javadocs viewer is now available via the Admin > Implementation Tools menu. This launches the Javadocs landing page, which allows you to view information about base delivered Java classes and packages. In addition, when viewing an algorithm type, batch control, or foreign key reference, a 'source viewer' icon is visible when a Java program is displayed. If you click the icon, it launches Javadocs for that particular program.

In the Script page, the Script Tips zone in the dashboard includes a link to View Groovy Javadocs. This allows script writers to view information about methods and classes available for developing Groovy scripts.

Provide the required access before using the feature. Details are in the Access Requirements section.

The Javadocs menu entry has an application service described above. For the View Groovy Javadocs link in the script tips zone, no additional security is needed. As long as you have inquire access to the Script page, you have access to view the Groovy Javadocs. Similarly, for launching Javadocs using the 'view source' icon on Algorithm Type, Batch Control or FK Reference, no additional security is required. As long as you have inquire access for the Algorithm Type, Batch Control or FK Reference pages respectively, you are able to view the Javadocs.

System administrators should set/grant users/grant access to the F1JAVADOCS application service to grant access to the new Javadocs Viewer menu entry.

Menu items include optional configuration for application service and access mode. For menu items associated with searching, security is controlled by the associated portal or transaction's application service. Therefore, defining an application service on these menu item is only useful to override the base application service, which is not common. However, for many menu items related to the add action, if a users did not have access to that action, they may still see the option on the menu and would only get a security error later after attempting to add. Utilities could override this by configuring an application service for the "add" Menu Item.

All product menu items handling an 'add' or any other action are configured with an application service or access mode by default.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

If your implementation has associated any base menu item with an application service, this configuration will not be overridden.

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

 

Additional icons allow for an enhanced user experience for displayed information.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The language input parameters in the F1-LANG (New Language) batch program were adjusted to avoid confusion when submitting the batch for deletion of a language.

The two parameters were previously called Source Language and Target Language. Their descriptions have changed to Copy From Language and Action Language. The parameter names were not changed.

The behavior for adding a new language has also not changed. You should continue to put the Language to copy from first, and then the language you are adding as the second parameter. For example, if you are creating German language rows, using English as the Copy From Language, you would populate:

However, the behavior for deleting changes has been updated. Previously, you populated the Source Language for the delete. Now you populate the Action Language. For example:

In addition, the batch program has been updated to prevent you from deleting rows for the ENG language that would result in the product system metadata being deleted.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

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

By default, the Content Migration Assistant (CMA) import process creates a migration object for each imported entity. This allows for a granular reporting and error handling at the entity level. When importing a high volume data set of business entities, this granular management has a performance toll.

The CMA import process now supports a Bulk Import option by which a group of entities, of the same maintenance object, is managed as a single migration object. Using this option reduces the migration object management effort throughout the process and results in better performance. Each entity is still individually validated in this mode, as in regular import processing, but if one entity is invalid the entire migration object is not applied (impacting all entities within it). Bulk import mode is useful when importing a large set of data from a validated data source when almost no errors are anticipated.

The indication of whether to use bulk import or not is specified on the migration data set import request.

Another new option, also specified on the migration data set import request, allows you to indicate that all imported entities are assumed to be new additions to the current environment. By indicating that this import is Insert Only, the import process avoids unnecessary steps to determine whether the entity should be added or updated.

These option are only supported for master and transaction maintenance objects. They are not applicable to configuration migrations.

The import step of the CMA process has been enhanced to execute insert statements more efficiently by leveraging the database's bind variables functionality. This is transparent to existing in-progress migrations.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

By default, the same import CMA batch processes manage configuration and business data migrations. Typically, business data migrations involve high volume of records compared to much lighter configuration data sets. Processing them together by the same batch process slows down the performance of configuration migrations, preventing them from completing faster and more frequently. The issue mainly affects test-like environments where mixed data class migrations is more common: configuration data is imported from a lower environment and large test data is imported from a higher environment. Now you can adjust your CMA configuration in such environments to benefit from separating the import processes for configuration and business data.

The need to separate import processes mainly applies to migration objects because of their volume. Migration data set and transaction records are of low volume and as such are still managed by the same batch processes.

New batch processes are provided for importing migration objects containing business data:

By default, the existing migration object batch processes continue to handle both classes of data. To use the new batch processes for business data, you need to associate the new business data migration object BO provided as part of this enhancement with the new batch processes. See the steps below for details.

To enable this feature, update the Migration Object Business Data (F1-MigrObjectBus) business object to reference the new batch controls on the following statuses:

If the customer is using event driven job submissions:

When performing a Content Migration Assistant (CMA) export, the format of the file is specific and the CMA import step knows how to read the file. There are times when the product makes an enhancement to CMA that requires a change in the structure of the export file at which point the 'version' of the CMA file is incremented. When this happens, the import step is able to detect if you are importing an older version of the CMA file and proceeds accordingly.

The product now provides support for exporting a CMA file using an older version format. For example, the current CMA version is 5. When creating a Data Set Export, you can indicate that you want to export using version 4. This is useful if you have upgraded one of your environments to a version of the product that uses CMA version 5, and you need to export data to an environment that has not yet been upgraded and is therefore still on version 4.

This is analogous to choosing to save a Microsoft Word document using an older version of Word (for example, with the .doc file type) during the period where not all software could consume the newer (.docx) version.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

When the migration data import process runs the pre-compare algorithms for a given migration plan, the logic now includes the algorithms configured on the migration plan in the target environment as part of the execution. Previously, this step only included the pre-compare algorithms carried over from the source environment. This ensures that any additional data updates applicable at the target are included.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

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

The zones on the Application Service - Application Security tab have the following improvements:

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Implementations using Platform as a Service (PaaS) can configure the file adapter of the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage service to store interface files and reports.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The product supports the ability for a utility to authorize an external person to view the customer's account information in a customer-facing portal (such as Digital Self Service). The system uses a private/public key to enforce standard security measures. Previously, the, Redirection Targets master configuration captured a reference to the alias for the key pair stored in the application keystore. Users may now capture a reference to a Signature key ring instead of the alias. This allows implementations to generate the key pair and to rotate the key pairs over time for greater security. Keystore aliases may no longer be used.

The master configuration for Redirection Targets now allows a key ring to be defined instead of the application keystore alias. This provides you with the ability to more easily manage Digital Self Service security.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The product uses HTML sanitization logic to protect against HTML injection. In this release, the product has improved how it handles custom attributes. Previously, the sanitization logic would automatically sanitize unrecognized custom attributes. Now the sanitization logic has been adjusted to assess the data referenced by the attribute. If the data appears to pose an HTML injection risk, the attribute is sanitized by adding 'data-' to the attribute, rendering it harmless. If the data is considered safe, the custom attribute is accepted as implemented.

Improvements to the HTML sanitization functionality to better handle custom attributes.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The logic to check referential integrity for characteristic types and characteristic values is adjusted to be more targeted, and uses the characteristic entity configuration.

Tables that hold characteristic types and values fall into one of the following categories:

Most characteristic tables fall into the first two categories. For these two categories, there is a characteristic entity flag value for each table and the table metadata defines its characteristic entity. For example, the To Do Entry Characteristic table defines the To Do Entry characteristic entity flag value. In this release, those tables have been updated to turn off the Enable Referential Integrity switch for the Characteristic Type and Characteristic Value constraints. Instead, explicit deletion validation logic has been added for Characteristic Type and Value. The logic looks at the Characteristic Entity values associated with the Characteristic Type and will only check the tables related to those values for references to the Characteristic Type/Value.

Tables in category 3 do not reference a characteristic entity value. Since these are configuration tables and low volume, the constraints for Characteristic Type and Characteristic Value continue to turn on the generic referential integrity.

Tables in categories 4 and 5 may or may not have an explicit characteristic entity value depending on the use case. For these types of tables, if there is no Characteristic Entity, it is at the discretion of the product that owns that table as to whether or not referential integrity is enabled for that table.

This enhancement ensures that the deletion logic will not spend time checking every characteristic table for a reference the characteristic type/value. It will first explicitly check the tables related to the characteristic entities configured on the Characteristic Type, and then the standard generic referential integrity based on the constraint configuration will be applied.

Note that as part of this change the referential integrity is also checked when removing a Characteristic Entity value from the Characteristic Type. For example, if you have a Characteristic Type that references the To Do Entry characteristic entity and you want to remove that characteristic entity value, the system will check first that there is no To Do Entry that references that Characteristic Type.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The product supports securing outbound messages using OAuth authentication. The client ID and secret used to obtain access are stored as message sender context values.

A new OAuth key ring business Object (F1-OAuthKeyRing) allows the client ID and secret to be stored in the same secure repository as other key ring classes, such as Signature keys. The key ring may be configured on the message sender context, replacing the client ID and secret context types. This enables the client secret to be updated periodically without having to update the associated message senders.

In addition, the key ring maintenance object is now an 'owned' entity. Message senders can now be delivered with the appropriate key ring already configured. Users will only have to add their specific keys to the delivered key ring.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The F1-BusinessFlagStandardName business object is enhanced to include a new, required element for Class. The class element is mapped to a characteristic of type F1-BSFCL, which has values of Business Flag and Real Time. The description on the F1-BusinessFlagStandardName BO has been changed to External Insight Standard Name to reflect its expansion to a wider set of external insights.

Additional class element added to the External Insight Standard Name (formerly described as Business Flag Standard Name) extendable lookup business object allows developers to restrict the choice of standard name types on a business flag type to specific classes.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

There is a high volume of batch run data in the operational system that changes frequently and is recorded in a complex set of relationships. This is not well suited for analytics that run directly off the operational data or for being exported for use in other environments. The previous release introduced new tables to support snapshots containing only the batch run and batch thread data applicable to analytics. This release introduces new batch processes designed to populate and export from these tables in increments.

The Batch Run Analytics Snapshot Update and the Batch Thread Analytics Snapshot Update processes are used to add data to the snapshot tables on an ongoing basis. Each snapshot update selects only the batch runs and threads not already in the snapshot. In order to support the initial population of the tables, parameters are provided to limit the records selected to a range of months. Refer to batch controls F1BRANSN and F1BTANSN for more information.

The Batch Run Analytics Snapshot Data Export and the Batch Thread Analytics Data Export processes are used to extract data from the snapshot tables on an ongoing basis. These processes assume that a Data Export Control exists for each of the snapshot maintenance objects to capture the date of the previous extract as a reference point for selecting the next set of records. Refer to batch controls F1BRANEX and F1BTANEX for more information.

The analytics views have not been amended to reference the batch snapshot tables in this release. The batch processes are provided to allow the tables to be populated ahead of the introduction of new batch views in future.

Provide the required access before using the feature. Details are in the Access Requirements section.

System administrators should grant access to the F1-BTCHSN application service for any user that should be able to run this batch job.

This section provides information on functionality that has been removed, is no longer supported by Oracle Utilities Application Framework v4.5.0.1.1, or is planned for removal.

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

These two migration requests have been marked as not recommended for a long time. As of this release, they are no longer delivered in base.

For backward compatibility, the two migration requests are updated to have a "CM" owner for upgrading utilities. To avoid confusion, you may remove the records from your installation if they have never been used.

The following navigation keys have been removed:

Records in the UI metadata program component tables related to the above navigation keys.

These navigation keys have been deprecated:

Records in the UI metadata program component tables related to the above navigation keys.

This zone was implemented as part of the mobile application, which is no longer supported.

The user interface metadata has been removed for this object. This table was originally configured to support ILM, but it is no longer included in ILM partitioning steps.

Batch controls related to processing this table were removed if no instance data in the Batch Run table is found. If instance data is found, the batch control metadata is retained with a CM owner flag.

The user interface metadata has been deprecated for this object.

The user interface metadata and migration plan pan have been removed for this object.

The user interface metadata and migration plan have been deprecated for this object.

The user interface metadata and migration plan pan have been removed for this object.

The user interface metadata and migration plan have been deprecated for this object.

The user interface metadata has been removed for this object.

The master configuration business objects F1-MobileConfigurations and F1-MobileIdentityConfiguration are no longer delivered in base. Artifacts related to these BOs are removed if no master configuration records are found for the respective BOs. If there is a master configuration found for either, then the related data remains with a 'CM' owner.

The REST service and corresponding script to update the master configuration is deprecated.

The Import algorithm plug-in spot for migration plan was flagged for deprecation many years ago and the base product does not deliver algorithms for this plug-in spot. The Pre-Compare plug-in spot is the recommended mechanism for adjusting migration data during import.

This functionality was moved entirely from the User Group Service Management portal to the Service Manager tab on the new User Group portal.

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

In the current release, the product provides an option to Switch UI View. This changes the current user experience for the user for that session. Assuming the user is in the latest user experience (referred to as Redwood), this action switches the user experience to the previous look-and-feel.

In the future, the product plans to remove support for the ability to switch that design that preceded Redwood.

In an effort to consolidate application services, the product is removing all references in base delivered metadata to F1-DFLTAPS and FWLZDEXP. Records will instead reference F1-DFLTS.

You should select Admin > Security > Application Service and view F1-DFLTAPS. Review the Secured Objects zone. Note especially if your implementation uses this application service within HTML or Schemas. Any references should be adjusted to F1-DFLTS or a different application service that is appropriate for the business rule.

Implementations should repeat the above steps for the application service FWLZDEXP.

In addition, if your implementation has any hard-coding of either F1-DFLTAPS and FWLZDEXP in code that is not detectable by the Secured Objects zone, those references should also be updated to use F1-DFLTS or a different application service that is appropriate for the business rule.

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 will be removed in a future release.

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.

The Batch Run Statistics portal provides 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 Content Migration Assistant Import algorithm plug-in spot will be deprecated. It is recommended that you review any existing algorithms and create appropriate Pre-Compare algorithms instead.

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.