We’re happy to announce that InVision 5.0 is finally released! The star of the v5.0 show is the Work Process and Versioning feature, which makes it very easy to work with multiple version of different work processes such as forecasting, budgeting or any type of planning process.
New Features
Work Process and Versioning
Work Process and Versioning is a long-awaited and major feature that makes it much easier to work with multiple versions of work processes such as forecasting or budgeting. By creating a version of a Work Process, you get complete isolation of the configuration, business logic, and data within that version so users can work on separate versions of a budget, forecast, or any other business solution at any given time.
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Workbook as Homepage
You can now configure a Workbook to be the landing page of InVision instead of the default system homepage. This enables you to create a fully customized and actionable landing page for users instead of just a Workbook launcher portal.
Upgrade Packages
Another major feature of this release is the ability to upgrade Packages. This feature enables content authors to roll out new features, capabilities, and enhancements to Packages already installed by customers. An example, Profitbase Planner can now be updated with new features after having been deployed. Note that when a Package is being updated, the entire contents of the Package are replaced, so any customizations done to the Package are removed.
How to upgrade a Package
How to create a Package upgrade
Package Properties
The Package Properties feature enables you to define key-value pairs in Packages that can be used in your business logic. The properties can be set by the user when creating a new Work Process Version if the Package is part of the Work Process blueprint.
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Workbook Menu
The contents of the Workbook Menu can now be fully customized using the Designer. You can also position your Work Processes in the Workbook Menu. This means you can structure your Workbook Menus the way you want according to your business needs.
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TableView
TableView is a new Solution object for displaying data in a read-only data grid. Compared to spreadsheets which are used for editing data, TableView is used for displaying data in a user-friendly way. The component has many built-in features, for example, selection, sorting, filtering, formatting, and custom renderers.
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Clone Solution
You can now easily clone entire Solutions from the Designer start page. Cloning a Solution will also copy input data from the source Solution, permissions, and Data Flow schedules. Note that objects in cloned Solutions are not automatically added to the Data Pool after the cloning has been completed. They will, however, be added to the Data Pool if the Data Pool Compound View is rebuilt. If you don’t want this to happen, you need to edit your newly cloned Solution and remove the Data Pool configuration from the objects that you don’t want as members of the Data Pool.
Data Pool
Another very cool feature is the Data Pool which enables Solution developers to expose data from different Solutions through well-known, configurable interfaces in the database. The two main components of the Data Pool coming in version 5 are the Compound View and Synonym support.
The Compound View feature enables exposing data from multiple Data Stores and Views through a SQL View with a name explicitly defined by the solution developer. Data from all stores using the same Compound View name is combined into the same view. The view is automatically generated by InVision, and in addition to the data, also contains information about which Work Process Version the stores belong to (if any). This feature makes creating reports across Work Process Versions much easier, and it also makes data warehouse integrations easier as there are well-known API’s at the database level where data can be read.
We have also enabled creating synonyms for Data Stores, Tables, Dimensions, and Views. A synonym is an alias or alternative name for the materialized table of the Solution object. For example, the materialized table of a Data Store has a suffix that is dynamically generated when the Data Store is deployed. This means that you cannot know what the materialized database table name of a Data Store will be. With the synonym feature, you can give the database object a well-known name that will stay the same at all deployments. Note that a synonym can only belong to one object at a time, so if you need to combine data from multiple objects, use the Compound View instead of the synonym.
Form Schema
- You can now execute functions from external components and events.
- A new RichText editor component enables editing and formatting rich text documents.
- Support for async functions enables using the await keyword in functions to avoid “callback hell”.
- The new Grid panel component defines a flexible grid layout area that consists of rows and columns. It enables displaying controls, such as buttons, labels, lists, etc in a grid layout system.
- The new Data Service API enables developers to save and reload specific data models in a Form Schema without using the standard Save and Load actions of the Form Schema component.
- The new DataLoaded event runs after data has been loaded, but before the initial render. If you need to manipulate the data before it is rendered the first time, you should use this event.
Data Flow Scheduler component
The Data Flow Schedule component enables users to create and edit the scheduled runs of Data Flows from a Workbook instead of having to use the Designer.
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Show / hide filters
Filters can now conditionally and dynamically be shown or hidden, either on some state on the server, or some state on the client.
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System metadata views
We have added system metadata information views which provide information about solutions and work processes. These are official metadata APIs that are safe to use and will not break between versions.
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Worksheets and Tables
You can now execute SQL Scripts defined in your Solution in Save Interception scripts. This enables reusing the same scripts in multiple save interception scripts.
Dimensions
We added support for defining translations for dimension members using the Designer.
System
- The Scheduler Worker service has been replaced by the System Worker service
- Logs are automatically purged
- MVT has been ported to .NET 5
- pbACUserDirectory is automatically updated from Windows or Azure AD
Breaking changes
Previously, JavaScripts defined in one Solution would be loaded to Workbooks in other Solutions as well. This is no longer the case. JavaScripts will only be loaded to Workbooks that are in the same Solution.
The Scheduler Worker service has been replaced by the System Worker service. This means that any existing Planner 4.0 solution will have to be manually changed. Please contact the Profitbase Product team for details.
Bug fixes
#284 Localize doesn’t work for cell validation
#276 Exiting date fields after input
#275 Ranked input selected value not updated
#264 Tab control missing HeaderTextCode
#230 dfcmdutil returns 415 error
#209 Package editor improvements
#148 Report columns should be default readonly
How to install or upgrade
To install Profitbase InVision 5.0 or upgrade an existing instance, you need to install the latest version of Profitbase Installation Manager (v5)