Release 8.3

Overview

Empowers 8.3 release introduces a wide variety of new features to simplify and speed up your PLM and QMS tasks. Of particular note: We’ve refreshed our Help, added Single Sign-on Authentication, and made Reporter, Subscriptions, and the License Monitor more powerful and easier to use. As in every release, we’ve focused on adding the features you need to improve the quality, safety, and compliance of your work. Read on for all the upgrades in this release.

Major Additions

• Empower is now FIPS-compliant for your data security needs.
• Single Sign-on (SSO) Authentication now supported! Administrators: Learn how to add this functionality
• New user interfaces for the Empower License Monitor and Empower Reporter
• Empower Help is redone with search and a new interface.
• We've added more in-app help, with 'i' info buttons describing item and category types on Item Change and Document Change pages. Administrators: [learn how to add more in-app information to your item types and categories.
• .Net Framework Upgraded to version 4.8. Administrators: Learn how to support this upgrade
• Add and edit Vendors on the affected Items list of a change order so you can modify their "General", "Attributes", "Documents", and "Contracts" pages from there!
• Subscriptions can now be added to most any object including Trainings, Projects, Vendors, Vendor Items, Items/Parts/Boms, Change/ECOs, Quality/CAPA Objects, and Service Objects!
• Type/Category relationships will now be enforced throughout the lifecycle of an item to preserve the quality of your data. We know it was too easy to mistakenly change the type or category of an object and deal with the confusion that caused. We are happy to report it will no longer be an issue! To demo this change, check out our Item and Category Information Page.
• Item History will now indicate when an item was created by BOM import, reporting: "Action: Item Created" and "Detail: From BOM Import". This information will improve the tracking of part history and allow for more proactive data error correction.
• You can now remove Vendor Notes using Change Redline.

Training Updates

• You can now more easily add yes/no questions to your comprehension tests with our Binary Question Type.
• The creator of training item will now be the default trainer unless you've already declared one (via Administrator->Training Options->Required Fields->Trainer).
• To provide better training controls, now only trainers and their defined signatories can edit Comprehension tests attached to objects.
• Completed training assignments can now be set to stop auto-generating new revisions.
• In the Training history revisions, users without "modify Training Comprehension" or "grade Training Comprehension" privileges cannot see the Comprehension module of previous training revisions. Trainers will still be able to see all history.
• When a recurring training date is approaching but no new rev has been created, administrators will now receive an email notification reminding them to make one if necessary. You can turn this on and change how many days before the revision an email is sent in Empower Administrator->Email Alerts/Options.
• Trainers will now be notified when comprehension tests have been submitted for grading. Trainees will receive email notification when the trainer finishes grading. Configure these settings in Empower Administrator->Email Alerts/Options.
• Trainers can now allow users to retake auto-graded comprehension tests a set number of times. Configure these settings when making or modifying an exam in Training Item->Comprehension->Create/Modify Exam.
• When users pass a test, they will now see a “congrats” message directing them to complete signoff from the test.
• Administrators: you can now prevent Completed Training objects from incremental revision changes caused when their associated items release a new revision. Learn about our new Stop creating new revisions by automation on closed training setting within Empower Administrator.

Administrator Additions and Changes

• User records will now include a “Last Login” and “Created On” date (read-only) column. This information provides Administrators with historical information and informs them if a user hasn't logged in recently. It is located in Empower Administrator -> User Options -> Users.
• New “Maintenance Mode” option allows you to disable/re-enable all non-admin user logins while you make changes (Empower Administrator -> System Settings).
• Choose authentication type for each individual user rather than only for all users. Admin can now edit each user and decide which methods should apply to them individually, and in what order.
• Added support for multiple controllers for each domain
• Errors during login authentication with LDAP are now recorded
• Vendor contacts: the only required field is now “Name”
• New “Add Vendor Item Reports” where you can see all Vendor items not attached to an item or current Item Revs.
• Improved Email error handling:
  • Email logs are now located in Administrator "Email Log" page instead of File, including both sent and unsent email logs. Admin can resend all the emails on that page.
  • Logs will now record mail server connection failures and email logs sent from the Test feature in the Administrator.
  • Email will be automatically re-sent (up to 3 attempts) when it fails.

Bug Fixes

• Projects: Closed projects are no longer assignable to other objects. Assigning closed projects to objects can cause confusion and issues with your QMS and PLM goals. We no longer allow this.
• Objects: Expiring change orders can now trigger Email alerts: Change orders used to expire without any warning. Now, you will receive an email when expiration dates are approaching. Enable and edit this feature in Empower Administrator->Email Alerts/Options->Email Alerts.
• Objects: BOM Renumbering on Change no longer creates orphaned redlines: When renumbering BOMS in changes, redlines could become disassociated from their objects. This is no longer the case.
• Files: Shared File Area browser now loads correctly. This browser could be very slow to load. We've put a little jetpack in it for you!
• Changes: Item and Vendor Changes Redlines no longer duplicate after change release. In rare instances, Item and vendor changes would duplicate during a change release. This is no longer the case.
• Attributes: Max limit in Attribute Side Panel now works correctly. Occassionally, the Max Limit guardrail on Attribute size did not work as intended. Now it does!
• APIs: Custom made translator code now works again with Empower! If you are a customer whose translation code stopped working with 8.2, everything should work now!
• Changes: Vendor notes can now be edited and deleted with redlines. Vendor notes used to be impossible to delete in this way. Now you can!
• Changes: Item Associations now carry forward to New Revs. In certain instances, Item associations would break when revisions were made. Now they work as intended!
• Changes: “Affected Item Group Edit” no longer allows users to enter existing Rev as New Rev. In rare instances, users could create confusion in their data by giving a New Rev the same number as an existing Rev. Empower no longer allows that.
• Items: BOM imports are now faster, more error-resistant, and recorded in Change History. We caught a few small bugs and errors related to BOM imports and are happy to say they are more resilient to human error than ever before!
• Reporter: now includes “Affected Items” custom fields support. You can now leverage your custom field data in your Empower Reports!
• Items: Item > Associations > Where Associated view Now displays correctly. In rare instances, a Rev would display the information in an another related rev. This is no longer the case.
• Reports: Users now appear correctly in “Due/Overdue Signoff Reports”. In rare instances, Reviewers could be both Required and also absent from the Signoff Report. Now they appear as intended.
• Permissions: Disabled users can no longer be assigned as signatories. You used to be able to assign a signatory through a user profile to a disabled user. This is no longer the case.
• Training: Recurring training objects no longer remain in Inbox after Training Object is set to ‘closed'. Recurring trainings took some effort to completely "close," but now they should disappear as intended when no longer necessary.
• Administrator: Auto Number Usage now shows the correct count and list information. In Administrator->Global Options->Auto Numbers, you can see a 'Usage' count badge that dispalys the number of Types/Categories that are assigned to the Auto Number group. This number used to be confusing becuase it included disabled Types/Categories. We've removed these disabled Types/Categories from the count so they now work as intended.
• Reports: Configure decimal places for cost fields in the BOM Cost rollup report are now available You can now configure the decimal places under Cost Field in Reports to make things like Cost Rollup Reports.