Release Date 7 April 2015

 

Release Summary

TransLution 3.60 is a release that focuses on improving supportability and the implementation process rather than on the addition of many new features for end users.

 

RF Server, EazyScan and EazyTouch rebuild

This enhancement was done largely to improve our ability to support and maintain the EazyTouch and EazyScan products going forwards. A number of the job processing tasks still used the original TransLution features that were in place from supporting a TransLution stock picture. By spending time to split out the new EazyScan features from the original processing functions, we have been able to make a change that is very significant to most end users and to anyone who supports a TransLution implementation. There is no longer a jobdata.xml file used for any EazyScan type functions. This should relieve a significant support burden.

 

System Configuration Enhancements

The other key change in this build of TransLution is that we have significantly streamlined the function area and scanner prompt sequence creation process. There is now one form (shown below) where all the setups for scanner jobs can be done. The on line help has been updated to reflect these changes and while these notes are not intended to replace the complete help function, some changes are highlighted below. Note the tabs on the form - Function Area, Prompt Sequence, Touch Screen/Service and Document. If the function area was not set up as a Touchscreen function area, then the TouchScreen tab would not be visible. In the same way, if the user selects a Quality Manager type overlay, then a new tab will appear for the additional information.

 

New Function Area maintenance form

 

The key new tabs however are the Prompt Sequence and Document tabs

 

The Prompt sequence tab lets you define the scanner prompt sequence from the same form (and add new prompts) while the document tab lets you define details about a function area at the time of creating the function area. Generating system documentation should then be a case of printing a report. These two tabs are shown below:

 

Prompt Sequence Definition

 

Note that there are multiple tabs on this form and that specifically, just like you can define Function Area documentation you can define scanner prompt documentation as well. Also note that everywhere where a view name or stored procedure name is required, this can be selected via a drop down and no longer needs to be entered.

 

Function Area Documentation

 

Workflow Documentation

We have added the same documentation options to the Workflow maintenance form and at the same time made the form a little larger and easier to use. Another minor issue on this form that has been fixed was that this form by default showed both Active and Inactive workflows. The TransLution default standard is to show active items only

 

Modified Workflow Maintenance form

Licensing Changes

We have made some licensing changes that greatly assist with our long term goal of multi-company support for TransLution. We have added the ability for a single license file to contain the license details for more than one TransLution database. This means that it will be possible with 3.60 to have one installation able to look at multiple TransLution databases without any need to have multiple RF server installs. Our plans for 3.61 include giving users the ability to choose which TransLution database they will be working on at the point of logging on. Once that is in place we will have full multi-company support.

 

Function Area Copy

We have also added the ability to copy a function area and export it for importing into another database. This includes all the Function Area items such as scanner prompts, transpose data, views, VBP code and stored procedures.

 

Other Minor Enhancements and Bug Fixes

  • If a user defined a scanner name that did not exist when setting up the scanner or touch screen, the scanner was correctly not created in TransLution but a row was added to the scanner settings table which caused an error when opening the scanner maintenance form on the client. This has been fixed.
  • There was previously no easy way to see on an EazyScan screen the name of the database, device and TL version. We have now added an About button which should help to assist with support calls.
  • There was a bug when displaying a TL selector grid - if there was a filter active when the grid was closed and another TL selector grid was opened that did not contain the filter column an error would appear - invalid column name. This error could only be removed by removing the filter off the first grid. This has been fixed.
  • If the first prompt in a function area has a drop down and the last prompt was defaulted with an auto close AND returning to the first prompt, the next function area called would display a drop down on the first prompt. This has been fixed. This was previously dealt with by ensuring that the last prompt did not refer back to prompt one but this no longer matters.
  • If a scanner prompt sequence was set up referring to a prompt number that did not exist then there would be an unhandled exception and the scanner software would crash. This is no longer the case. There is still an error thrown and the job will be closed but the software will continue to run.
  • On the Touch Screen installation we no longer delete the settings file when uninstalling touch screen. This means that when the EazyTouch software is updated or re-installed on a device, the implementer no longer has to go through the setup again to define the device name and the database and server to use. Previously with every install the EazyTouch setup had to be done again.
  • The Cancel button on the RF scanner was not visible after an invalid first scan. This has been fixed.
  • On the first save of a function area, the TouchScreen indicator was not saved meaning that any Touch screen setups were lost and needed to be redone after saving the function area. This has been fixed.
  • In 3.50 we added the option of displaying a default value. We discovered however that this did not work for the first prompt. This has now been fixed.
  • We found that there was an error when finishing a scanner job if the last prompt was not transposed. While we strongly recommend that all prompts be transposed, there is no longer an error when the last prompt is not transposed.

 

On Line help and Documentation

The On-line help available with TransLution has not only been updated to reflect the changes described here, it has also be re-structured to follow that standard implementation process. It is hoped that this will make the on-help easier to use and of more benefit to system implementers. Also, now that we have documentation data stored in the database, we will be working to create some standard reports that can be used for documentation purposes. As a first step, our standard database will now be shipped with a set of queries built around the documentation fields in order to allow custom reports to be built.