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Release 8.4

Release 8.4

Highlights

  • Updated UI across Empower
  • Numerous BOM and Change Order Improvements
  • Introducing User Roles for assigning users to multiple User Permission Groups at one time.
  • Create Workflows using Affected Item Lifecycles as a condition
  • New Reports: Procurement, “Where Used” (for multiple items), and “Sole-Sourced Items"
  • Email Digests: Subscribe to receive all your notifications on a daily or weekly schedule

Updated UI/UX

Empower has updated the look of all Administrator, OmniBom, Application Portal, The Configure Server Module, and various other pages to create a more spacious and simpler look. In addition to these aesthetic changes, Empower also made the following UI/UX enhancements:

  • OmniBom: New UI across OmniBom and the “Import BOM” and “Empower BOM” options have been removed to create a more streamlined left-hand menu).
  • The ‘News’ tab now highlights when content is added to catch users’ attention. All text for each news item is now also visible from this tab.
  • Improved Test Site Alerts: When running a test site, you can now set a distinct and consistent test color theme. This theme will work even if you have installed a new service pack.
  • Copy & Paste now supports revision: Copy and pasting from any source into the Change Affected Items, Quality Affected Items, or the Item Parts List pages now always refer to current Rev. This is the default behavior of the Add function on those pages. In addition, copy and pasting Item Associations set to [Latest] now preserves their [Latest] Designation as expected.
  • User Login History and Messages can now appear on your login screen. To enable Login History, go to Administrator > Global Options > System Settings and check "Display previous machine users on login screen"
  • Administrators can add a Send Us Feedback link located under the [?] menu. From here, users can suggest new features and alert us to bugs. Administrators can turn this feature on for their users using these instructions.

Other sites updated with Empower’s improved UI/UX (no feature changes): Empower Administrator, Toolkit Administrator, Web Services Backup, Server-Site Error, End-User License Agreement, and the About Page.

  • Users can now search based on “Comment Type.”
  • Users can now select to view “Comment User” and “Comment Date” columns when searching.
  • Users can now search for date fields by selecting a date range with the calendar. The pages involved are Task Search page, Object History/Comment, Change ECOs/Quality Issues in Item/Vendor item/Vendor pages, all reports page which have Date fields.
  • Certain keywords in the Attribute Name field cause inaccurate search results. These keywords will now no longer be allowed and will generate error messages.

Item/Part/BOM

With a focus on improving the visibility and accuracy of your data, Empower has made a number of enhancements to match your Change management needs:

  • BOMs can now display “Pending Change” and “Last Change” columns. “Pending Changes” column displays all pending hyperlinked ECO’s that an item is attached to. “Last Changes” now includes the most recently released change order against that part. Configure columns to display in User Preferences > Item Options > BOM Options.
  • When adding Projects to an Item Change, you can now select to include completed projects in your search criteria with a simple checkbox.
  • You can now create a new vendor item directly from the BOM/Item > Vendor Item page of a change.
  • The Global rule, “Prevent creating new items during BOM import” is now a user permission: “Can create new items during BOM import”. By default, this permission is disabled.
  • Vendor item and vendor object changes are now recorded in History.
  • Vendor Items > Where Used: now includes a “Pending Adds” section, showing all pending change orders the vendor item has been added to.
  • BOM Exports: All vendor names are now included in BOM exports as expected.
  • Item Associations: Notes are now carried forward from revision to revision as expected.
  • Affected Items:
    • Other Pending Changes/ECOs: When exporting a change, users now have the option to include/exclude the “Other Pending Changes/ECOs” section.
    • Workflow Options: When adding a Changes/ECO workflow, you can now create conditions using your Affected Item's Lifecycle. With this enhancement, users can do things like create different workflows for “production” and “preliminary” items. This option will be especially useful for those users who create change orders in Draft mode before adding affected items, specifying changes, etc.
    • Affected Item Rollup: The affected item roll-up list now includes a "Parent Lifecycle" column for each item. Use this information to decide whether to put parent items on your change orders. For instance, obsolete items may not need to be added.
    • Group Edit performance is improved.

User Management

  • Introducing User Roles: To make it possible for users to be assigned to more than one user group, we are introducing the meta-permission group: ‘Roles’. Roles can include multiple Permission Groups. Users can be assigned to one role, which also assigns them to all associated Permission Groups. Add and edit User roles at Administration > User Options > Roles.

Subscriptions and Notifications

  • A notification is now sent when a change order is released that adds/removes an item to/from a BOM.
  • Notifications can now be sent to users as a digest via email on a daily or weekly schedule. Set this preference in User Preferences > Home Page Options > Send digest emails.

Documents/Files

  • File names now stay constant when downloading and checking in/out. Spaces are no longer replaced by underscores.
  • Document check-ins and all file changes are now recorded in Change History.

Reports

  • New Where Used (Multi-Level) Report: This is a multi-level where-used report that can be run against multiple items at a time. We also have a “Where Used” report, which can be run against multiple items but only includes a single level.
  • New Procurement Report for hierarchical BOMs: This report shows all BOM items in a hierarchical assembly, with all items grouped together to show the total quantity of each item in the entire assembly.
  • New Sole-Sourced Items Report: Includes items with exactly one associated Vendor. This report includes not only Items with a single Vendor Item relationship, but also Items where multiple vendor item relationships exist, but they are all with the same Vendor.
  • Pending Objects Report Improvement: New and improved ‘Successful Save/Export’ message for added clarity when exporting many objects.
  • Standard Reports can now be filtered based on timeframe.

Authentication

  • When the Administrative Option “Prevent previous passwords box” is checked, users now may no longer use previous passwords as expected.
  • Users who are logged in to Empower Administrator will no longer have to log in again to open an item.

Performance

  • Improved clearing of .temp data to avoid memory consumption issues.

New API Endpoints and Modifications

Visit our API Guide for our complete list of endpoints.

  • Update Project Roles
  • Create Service Object
  • BOM Routings API Endpoints:
    • New Create/Update BOM Routings Feature
    • Add Routing Operation
    • Update Routing Operation
    • Add Operation Sequence
    • Update Operation Sequence
    • Assign BOM Items to an Operation
    • Remove assigned BOM Items from an Operation
    • Assign an existing document to an Operation
    • Get Routing Documents
    • Download Routing Documents
    • Add new field to Get Operation Documents

Bug Fixes

  • Changes > Item Changes > Attribute Changes: Vendor Items on Changes now only include Vendor Attributes as expected.
  • When exporting Large BOMs, the Business Unit Column is now included in the output as expected.
  • Administrator > Users: After updating a user, the user will remain on their current page as expected.
  • The icons on ‘Add Users’ slide-out panels are now accurate.
  • Administrator > Email Alerts/Options > Training Recurrence: Leaving a required field empty on this form now generates an error message as intended.
  • Administrator > Global Options > Task Priorities: Add, Edit, and Delete on this page now work as intended.
  • OmniBOM: When Uploading a BOM, text in ‘Reason’ and ‘Description’ fields now displays as expected.
  • Search: The search result list UI and magnifier now appear as intended.
  • The Empower Change Form Refdes column is now a reasonable size as intended.
  • When successfully registering your Empower Site ID, a "Site registered successfully" now appears as expected.
  • When creating a new Project on the Server Home Page, required field types now appear red and non-required field types are black as intended.
  • Saving invalid email address in License Monitor > Options/Settings now generates an error message as intended.
  • When adding a user to a User Group that was associated with and then disassociated from a Training, that user will no longer be associated with that Training as expected.
  • Deleting all tasks attached to a Quality/CAPA Item now works as intended.
  • Document Check In API now works as intended.

Package Release 8.4.5

  • "Add as Affected Item" button: Adding Affected Items no longer changes their item numbers to lower-case.
  • Rev Effective From and Effective To dates in search columns: When searching for parts with blank Effective From or Effective To dates, the search "Effective" dates columns now show as blank instead of "1900-01-01".
  • User name already in use: A rare bug made some former users appear as still in use and they could not be re-added back into Empower. Adding former users now works as expected.
  • Vendor Item Attributes: The data type of Vendor Item Attributes are now enforced on Changes.
  • Custom BOM Display Fields: Adding 'Type' as a Custom BOM Display Field caused Headers and data to be misaligned. Headers and data now display as expected.
  • Missing Users: When upgrading to 8.4, a rare bug could occur where disabled users became unlocatable when their roles or permissions changed. Disabled users now appear as normal and Permissions and Roles now work as expected.
  • App Portal Connection: For some users, error messages would appear showing they could not connect to the App Portal. The App Portal connection now works as expected.
  • Lifecycle display: When on a "Simulate Release" or "Change Release" page, the status would display instead of the Lifecycle. The Lifecycle now displays as expected.
  • Document Packager: The document packager would fail after running the first time. It now works as expected.
  • Printing multiple pages: Printing multiple pages on an Item or Change form now works as expected.
  • Description Field Value: When performing a Record Change on an Item and then performing an Edit to the description field, the New Value window was reduced in size. This field now appears as expected.
  • Project Role Search Results: Performing searches with the Project Role filter was returning zero results. Results now return as expected.
  • Training Frequency Error: When updating Training Frequency, users who had not completed their Training did not have their status updated. This status now updates as expected.
  • Training emails: Sending emails only to "All users who have not completed training" now works as expected and no longer also sends emails to all users who completed their training.
  • Session IDs: Session IDs now expire when a new session ID is granted and when users log out as expected.
  • Password Reset Limit: To safeguard against email flooding attacks, we have added a limit on email requests for password resets.
  • Password Changes: To protect users and workspaces, when users change their passwords, sessions will now immediately terminate.