AX1816

New features and enhancements

This section provides an overview of the features and enhancements in this release.

Updated Web Client navigation

The Web Client navigation experience has been updated and improved:

• Navigation menu now easily accessible across the top instead of within a side panel
• Area menu and Launch menu combined into a single menu for quick access to different product areas and applications
• New Bookmarks panel for easy access to favorites and recent items
• Streamlined and updated Notifications panel
• Overall presentation and styling updated to match current standards for user experience and design

Example updated navigation bar

The navigation menu across the top is context-sensitive. For systems with installed products, it displays the menu for the current product area. If you are in the System Administration area, it displays the System Administration menu.

Example System Administration menu in updated navigation bar

The task bar below the navigation bar also has updated styling. All task bar features except the navigation panel continue to work the same way as they did before the update.

Example form showing updated task bar

The new navigation is automatically available in the Web Client. Your existing custom web navigation items will work seamlessly in this new environment. Although no manual adjustments are necessary for continued operation, custom clients may decide to make elective improvements to optimize the use of the new navigation. For more information, see Updating your Web Client navigation bar.

New Filter Wizard in the Report Builder

The Filter Wizard in the Report Builder has been redesigned to make it easier and more intuitive to create filters that impact report data. The new Filter Wizard is available to create report-level filters, as well as filters on individual columns, calculations, and column groups. Improvements include:

• Ability to quickly search for specific tables and columns within the wizard

• Enhanced ability to browse, search, and select existing values within a column to create the filter

• Intuitive and simplified presentation of each filter statement to more easily define, edit, and understand the complete filter

• Improved user experience for creating compound filter statements, including drag and drop design and visual representation of statements combined using AND/OR

• Ability to use predefined filter statements as global filters or as starting points for custom filters (see next section for more information)

• Improved context-sensitivity when defining filters for columns, calculations, and groups so that only tables relevant to the current context are shown

New Filter Wizard in the Report Builder

Additionally, report-level filters have been moved from their previous location in the Report Configuration panel to a separate Filter tab. This new location makes it easier to review and manage all of your report-level filters.

New Filters tab in Report Builder

For more information on using the new Filter Wizard in the Report Builder, see Using the Filter Wizard in the Report Builder.

Filters created using the new Filter Wizard use a different underlying structure than existing filters. Your existing filters will be migrated to the new structure when the report is opened for the first time after upgrading to 2022.1. The vast majority of filters will be migrated without issue, however, there are a few existing filter configurations that will not migrate. For more information, see Upgrade considerations for web report filters.

Global filters in web reports

Web reports now support the concept of global filters. This means that the report can reference a filter stored in the centralized Filter Library instead of saving the filter directly in the report. If the global filter in the Filter Library is updated, the report will automatically use the updated filter criteria, without needing to edit the report.

For example, imagine that you are a healthcare organization and you want to filter various reports by codes relating to COVID-19. You create a filter with the codes and save the filter in the Filters Library, then reference the filter in the reports. Later, if you need to add a new code, you can edit the global filter. All reports that reference the global filter are now automatically filtered by the additional code.

Using the new Filter Wizard in the Report Builder, you can now:

• Create a filter and then save it to the Filter Library for future use

• Use a filter from the Filter Library to create a global filter in the report—both new-style filters and existing legacy filters can be used

• Combine global filters with "local" report-specific filters as needed

• Convert a global filter reference into a local filter within the report, so that the filter is no longer tied to the global filter in the Filter Library

Filter Library in new Filter Wizard to use global filters

Currently, any filter created and saved to the Filter Library from the new Filter Wizard can only be used in web reports. Future releases may expand the use of the new Filter Wizard to other areas of the application.

The term legacy filters refers to filters created using the previous version of the Filter Wizard and saved to the Filter Library. Only regular legacy filters can be used as global filters in web reports. Limit filters cannot be used at this time.

For more information on using global filters, see Using global filters in the Report Builder.

Filter web reports by process columns and date parts

Using the new Filter Wizard in web reports, you can now filter the report by process columns or by date parts. Both of these options are new—it was not previously possible to create these types of filters in the legacy Filter Wizard.

Date part filters

For Date and DateTime columns, you can specify a date part to base the filter on, instead of basing the filter on the full date or date-time. For example, you can specify Quarter as the date part and then create a filter to only show records where the date is in the second quarter. You can select any of the available date part options and use any of the valid values in the filter.

Date part selector for creating date part filters

Process management filters

If a report is configured to show process management columns, you can create a filter based on useful process information. For example, you can filter the report to only show plan files in a particular step or with a particular status, or in relation to the time spent in a step.

Process Management columns in the Filter Wizard

Display hyperlinks in web reports

You can now display active hyperlinks in web reports, so that report viewers can use the hyperlinks to navigate to supporting detail or related information. This feature is intended for cases where each row of the report has a corresponding link, and these links can be generated dynamically based on a value relating to the current row data.

For example, if the rows of the report represent department codes or capital request codes that are active in a plan file process, you can dynamically generate a link to the process routing page for each code. Report viewers can click on the links to view the process details for particular codes as needed.

Example report with a hyperlink column

You can define two different types of links in web reports. Hyperlinks are enabled and configured at the column level, in the Column Configuration properties.

• Custom: Link to any page in the Axiom system by entering a relative URL. Variables can be used in the URL so that it is unique per row of the report.

• Plan File: Link to any set of plan files in the Axiom system. When using this option, Axiom dynamically generates the URL to each plan file on a per row basis, given a file group context. The row dimension of the report must be the key column of the plan code table in order to generate the links.

Example hyperlink properties

For more information on using hyperlinks, see Displaying hyperlinks in web reports.

Use date parts in Axiom queries

You can now report on Date and DateTime columns using date parts in Axiom queries. When using date parts—such as Year or Month—the column data is effectively transformed into the specified date part for purposes of the report. This allows you to not only display the specified date part, but also group, sort, and filter the query by the date part.

In order to use a date part, use the following syntax in the field definition of the Axiom query:

For example, the following report uses date part syntax to group, sort, and filter the report by the YearMo date part:

Example Axiom query using date part syntax

For more information on using date parts in Axiom queries, see Using date parts in Axiom queries.

Additional Report Builder enhancements

• Columns and column groups with filters now display with a filter icon in the Report Builder. This makes it easy for the report designer to see at-a-glance that a particular column or group is being filtered.

  

• An Intelligence Center breadcrumb is now available in the Report Builder, to quickly exit the report and navigate to the Intelligence Center.

  

• The Parameters tab of the Report Builder has been updated to match the styling of the new Filters tab. Previously each parameter had a set of general properties that displayed in a right-hand panel, and a set of parameter-specific properties that displayed in the middle panel. These properties have been combined into a single panel.

  

• Several new date parts are available for Date and DateTime columns. These date parts expand the available options to display, group, and filter by date and date-time values.

  

• You can now set default formats for Date and DateTime columns at the grid level of a web report, using the Grid Configuration settings. Any Date or DateTime columns that use the default formatting will inherit any changes made here.

Additional enhancements

The Purge System Data task now deletes expired announcements when it runs. By default, the task deletes all announcements that are 30 days past their configured expiration date. This setting can be configured as needed using the System.SystemDataPurge system job.