webcenter 12.1 release notes - product documentation...webcenter 12.1 release notes esko p. 4/55 4....

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WebCenter 12.1 Release notes

1. Introduction This document gives a quick overview of the new features in WebCenter 12.1. It is not intended to be a replacement of the WebCenter 12 documentation. We advise the reader to also read the appropriate chapters in the user or administration guide. For those who migrate from an older version than WebCenter 12, we advise also reading the release notes of all versions between your current version and WebCenter 12. These documents (and also the current one and the official documentation) can be found on http://help.esko.com/products/WebCenter. Like other WebCenter documentation, this document is available on help.esko.com.

1.1 Contents 1. Introduction ......................................................................................... 1 2. Release Content .................................................................................... 3 3. Licensing and IT requirements ................................................................ 3

3.1 Licensing ...................................................................................... 3 3.2 IT requirements ............................................................................. 3

4. WebCenter 12.1 new features ................................................................. 4 4.1 Project Calendar View ..................................................................... 4

4.1.1 The calendar view is a saved search.............................................. 4 4.1.2 Setup a search with Calendar View ............................................... 4 4.1.3 Using the basic calendar view ...................................................... 5 4.1.4 Using the calendar view with predictions ....................................... 6 4.1.5 Using the calendar view with Planning ........................................... 7 4.1.6 Using "Apply Forward Planning" option .......................................... 7 4.1.7 Project Status history settings ...................................................... 8 4.1.8 Combining calendar view with complex workflows .......................... 9 4.1.9 Calendar view troubleshooting and frequently asked questions ....... 10

4.2 Run reports as non-admin ............................................................. 11 4.3 Project reports ............................................................................. 13 4.4 Bill of Materials ............................................................................ 14

4.4.1 What is Bill of Materials? ............................................................ 14 4.4.2 Viewing the BOM of a project ..................................................... 14 4.4.3 Who can view and edit the BOM? ................................................ 15 4.4.4 Adding documents to the Bill of Materials .................................... 15 4.4.5 How to remove documents from the BOM? .................................. 17 4.4.6 Adding documents to the BOM during project creation .................. 17 4.4.7 How to search for Bill of Materials ............................................... 18 4.4.8 How to recognize if a document is part of a Bill of Materials ........... 20 4.4.9 BOM changes in the Project History ............................................ 20 4.4.10 BOM changes in the e-mail notifications ...................................... 20 4.4.11 Connection between the BOM and ArtiosCAD Enterprise ................ 21

4.5 Annotation Report ........................................................................ 22 4.6 Menu Builder ............................................................................... 24

4.6.1 Adding new menus ................................................................... 24 4.6.2 Updating menus ....................................................................... 24 4.6.3 Removing items from the menu.................................................. 25 4.6.4 Adding items from the Menu Gallery into the Menu Builder canvas .. 25 4.6.5 Adding a new top menu or menu item ......................................... 25

http://help.esko.com/products/WebCenter

WebCenter 12.1 release notes

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4.6.6 Changing Menu label translations ............................................... 27 4.6.7 Set visibility ............................................................................. 28 4.6.8 Editing Menu item ..................................................................... 29 4.6.9 Re-Order menu ........................................................................ 29 4.6.10 Saving the changes .................................................................. 29 4.6.11 Other Menu Types .................................................................... 29

4.7 External Web Connectivity ............................................................ 30 4.7.1 What is External Web Connectivity? ............................................ 30 4.7.2 How can you setup an External Web Connection? ......................... 30 4.7.3 How can you integrate an External Web Connection? .................... 31

4.8 Forgot Password .......................................................................... 34 4.8.1 How to setup? .......................................................................... 34 4.8.2 How does it work? .................................................................... 34

4.9 Viewer and Workflow applet preferences ......................................... 35 4.10 Smaller Improvements ................................................................. 38

5. Workflow Improvements ...................................................................... 39 5.1 Retry a workflow node .................................................................. 39 5.2 Stop a workflow ........................................................................... 40 5.3 Relaunch a workflow at a certain point ........................................... 40 5.4 Error handler node ....................................................................... 40 5.5 Feedback from the Error Handler node ........................................... 41

6. Installer and serviceability improvements ............................................... 42 6.1 Database Update tool ................................................................... 42

6.1.1 Gathering database connection input .......................................... 42 6.1.2 Installer-time database update progress and feedback .................. 43 6.1.3 Manual execution of the database update tool .............................. 43 6.1.4 Manual execution update progress and feedback .......................... 43 6.1.5 Remote database update ........................................................... 43

7. Ease of use Improvements ................................................................... 44 7.1 Searchable Dropdown Lists ........................................................... 44 7.2 Default landing page for project/documents .................................... 45 7.3 Choice of default folder for document upload in tasks ....................... 45 7.4 Sorting options on Tasks Overview and Schedule Tasks pages ........... 46 7.5 Inline help .................................................................................. 46

8. Improvements to the Automation Engine integration ............................... 47 9. Performance Improvements ................................................................. 48

9.1 Supported maximum load and number of users ............................... 48 9.2 Detailed improvements ................................................................. 49

9.2.1 Uploading from ArtiosCAD Enterprise .......................................... 49 9.2.2 Attributes ................................................................................ 49 9.2.3 My Tasks and My Handled Tasks ................................................. 49 9.2.4 Projects pages.......................................................................... 49 9.2.5 User/group operations ............................................................... 49 9.2.6 Search index size ..................................................................... 50 9.2.7 Search speed ........................................................................... 50 9.2.8 Database size........................................................................... 50

10. Viewer Improvements .......................................................................... 51 10.1 Barcode ...................................................................................... 51 10.2 Braille......................................................................................... 51 10.3 CAD comparison .......................................................................... 51 10.4 CAD revisions .............................................................................. 52

11. Known issues and limitations ................................................................ 53 11.1 Document search result of linked documents ................................... 53 11.2 Cascading dropdowns ................................................................... 53 11.3 Menu builder ............................................................................... 53 11.4 Search limitations for users being in too many groups ...................... 53

12. Solved customer issues ........................................................................ 54


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2. Release Content The Esko Software Suite 12.1 for WebCenter contains: ● Suite 12.1 WebCenter DVD that includes ArtiosCAD 12en Enterprise installer 1)

● Suite 12.1 Engines Software Installation DVD ● WebCenter Release Notes (this document; also present on the installation DVD.) ● ArtiosCAD Enterprise and WebCenter User Documentation (PDF format) 1) An update to ArtiosCAD 12 Enterprise build 50 or later is mandatory for WebCenter 12.1 (on the application server only).

3. Licensing and IT requirements

3.1 Licensing For WebCenter 12.1 alpha installation, new 12.1 licenses are needed for both WebCenter itself and the embedded ArtiosCAD.

3.2 IT requirements The minimum requirements for WebCenter 12.1 are identical to the minimum requirements for WebCenter 12. When upgrading from older versions than WebCenter 12, make sure to comply with following WebCenter 12 (and newer) requirement: A new additional port 3873 needs to be opened between the web server and the application server. Without opening this port, WebCenter will not work, so this must be ensured before upgrading We recommend reading and following the installation manual for more details.


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4. WebCenter 12.1 new features

4.1 Project Calendar View The Project Calendar View allows creating a dashboard for project managers showing a list of projects against a calendar. This creates a quick overview of your projects and points out which projects need your attention. For each project, colored blocks are shown indicating the time periods where projects are in each of the project statuses. The calendar view can both show the history as predict the future.

*Note: For some parts of the calendar view functionality, you need the lifecycle management license (more details below).

4.1.1 The calendar view is a saved search Technically, the calendar view is a new feature of project search. An administrator can configure a saved search to contain an area (columns) displaying the project stages (statuses) in a calendar. The picture above shows an example. As this is part of a saved search, this page can be further enhanced with drill-down parameters, additional columns, or it can be assigned to a menu item or a My work section. The displayed blocks are based on the status changes stored in the project history. So in order to be able to show the real project feedback, the project status history option must be enabled (Admin > Preferences > Notifications > Project status change -> Include in Project History).

4.1.2 Setup a search with Calendar View • As an administrator, Go to Search > Projects • Make sure the “View” checkbox is checked for the criterion Project Search • Click Show Result Layout Options (top right of the search page) • Select one of the calendar view options in the Project Status dropdown


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• Specify width (in pixels) for the calendar column (minimum is 200px but you get better results with 500px)

• Select a type of label (index) to be shown on the project status bars • Decide whether to also show the project status icon (which will then

appear at the left of the calendar) • Optionally you can also select to apply forward planning on estimates (only

in case calendar view with prediction or planning option is selected) Remark that the calendar is displayed in the column defined for the project status. By changing the column order for this column, you will move the calendar in the search result. In most cases the best result is obtained, if the calendar is the last column and if there are not too many preceding columns.

The 3 calendar options are:

- Show Calendar View: will show past statuses (history): 1 line per project

- Show Calendar View with Predictions: will show past statuses and predictions based on the tasks in the project. 1 line per project

- Show Calendar View with Planning: will show past statuses, predictions based on the tasks and the originally planned timeline (in gray) (2 lines per project)

*Note: The last two options are available with the task management license only. The 3 project status bar label options are:

• Number of Project Status: global project status display order number as defined in the admin/project statuses section

• Number in Order of Appearance: phases are numbered from 1 upwards as they appear on the page. Consequently there will always be a status with number 1 on the page, even if you search systematically for projects which only have very specific statuses out of a larger set.

• No Label: No label will be shown

4.1.3 Using the basic calendar view Everybody with access to this saved search can use the calendar view. In many cases, the system will be configured to have such a saved search appear as a menu item (this feature already exists since WebCenter 10 and has become very popular). In the basic view (‘Show Calendar View’) only 1 line is displayed and it stops at the vertical ‘today’ line.


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• The starting point is the project creation. From there onwards, colored blocks go forward in time. The color changes on the date where the project actually changed status (as remembered in the project history). This way you normally get a continuous line with each time differently colored blocks. Completed statuses are not painted so for completed projects, you see the last block ending before ‘today’.

• The vertical black line is always on ‘today’. So the current status of the project can be seen from the color where the black line cuts through the status line. Obviously you can also see the status from the icon if the administrator chose to show it.

• You can ‘zoom’ the calendar view with the + and – buttons. This changes the time scale from months to weeks to days or reversely.

• You can ‘pan’ the calendar view by using the arrows (just before the + and – icons).

• Clicking on the loupe icon resets the view.

• The colors are as defined in the project status setup. (Admin/Project

Management/Project Statuses) • The small red vertical line indicates the project due date (if set). • The blocks get labels (numbers) to easily identify equal statuses in

different projects. The number displayed corresponds to the project status index. Same statuses have the same number in all projects within the same context (section). You can select the label type in the search result layout options.

• You can hover over any of the status blocks to get more information (name of the status, start and end date, status type, calculated delay)

4.1.4 Using the calendar view with predictions In order to use this feature, your projects must have tasks setting project statuses. Therefore, this prediction is only available if the user has the task management license. Set for project status you want to show in the calendar view, you must have a task related to it. In these tasks (Task Edit page), you determine to what status the project will change after completion of this task.

From that moment onwards, the calendar view can use this task’s due date and lead time as predictions of the completion of this project phase/state. When no tasks changing project statuses are found in your projects, this view will be identical to the basic view. When such tasks are there:

• The first part of the project line (till today) works as in the basic view.


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• The second part (after today) shows a prediction of the project based on the project tasks (rescheduled based on their current status). The estimated due date is based on the task predecessors, task due date and lead time (see Task scheduling function spec. for more details). A lighter version of the project status color is used to draw this part of the bar. For each project status, it will look for a task completing this project status. Then it will determine from predecessor logic which tasks need to be completed to complete this task, and how much time this will take in total. For not started statuses, this will be the length of the block. For started statuses, it will first subtract what is already consumed and only add the remainder (potentially nothing) to the block. This way the time line is extended.

• Optionally, a forward planning can be applied on the estimates if this option is selected in the search result layout options (see Using the calendar view with Planning).

All this happens on business days (so skipping weekends). The display is optimized for the use case of purely subsequent stages. It will do its best to show something logical for all other situations.

4.1.5 Using the calendar view with Planning When using this view, you will see 2 lines for each project, a colored line and a grey line.

• The colored line behaves identical to the ‘calendar view with predictions’. • This grey line shows the planned project time line based on the project

tasks. For each project status, it will look for a task which completes this project status and for this task, it will take the due date. This will determine the end date for the grey block of this project status (the begin date is simply the end date of the previous status).

Notes:

• Subtasks are left out of the calculation. • In case multiple tasks are set the same project status, one (merged) stage

is shown only. This situation is best avoided • In case no project status history is available, nothing is shown. • ‘Completed’ Project Statuses are not shown in the calendar view. When a

project has been put to completed, and was started again later, there will be a gap in the history bar.

4.1.6 Using "Apply Forward Planning" option When the 'Apply Forward Planning on Estimates' option is enabled in the saved search result layout options, forward planning is applied when calculating the estimated due dates. It is only applicable when Calendar view with prediction or planning option is selected (e.g. estimation timeline will be shown).

• The estimated due date is based on the task predecessors, task due date and lead time.

• When this option is not selected, the software will never put an estimated due date for a not started tasks earlier than the task's due date, even if the predecessor finished early. In this case it is possible to see if the project can finish as planned or not (is behind the schedule), but you can't immediately see, if it can finish earlier (is ahead the schedule) and how much. This way is preferred in case the project planning doesn't use lead times for tasks, but the tasks due dates only.

Example:


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o Project1: Task 1 finished later, so the whole project is in delay. o Project2: Task 1 finished earlier, task 2 is expected to finished

today (max from started date + lead time and today), but the due dates for the not yet started tasks (3 and up) are not changed. The project is still 'on time'.

• When this option is selected, a forward planning is applied to all tasks when calculating the estimated due dates. To get correct results in this case, it is required that the forward planning was used for the original planning of the project (e.g. tasks lead times are in lined with the tasks due dates). Note that the new due dates are only shown in the calendar view, no changes are made to the tasks real due dates. Example:

o Project1: Task 1 finished later, so the whole project is in delay o Project2: Task 1 finished earlier, forward planning was applied on

the whole schedule, so due dates for all not completed tasks are move according to the tasks planned lead times (earliest today). The project is ahead.

4.1.7 Project Status history settings In order to be able to show the real project feedback the project status history option must be turned on. When loading the page, the following tests are made:

• If the global settings for the 'Project status change' include in project history is turned off, a message box with a clear message is shown.

• If project specific settings for the 'Project status change' include in project history is turned off for some projects (and the global settings is on), a warning icon with a clear tooltip message is shown next to the project name.


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4.1.8 Combining calendar view with complex workflows Since WebCenter 12, many customers have set up complex workflows which auto-generate the needed tasks on the fly. This feature is hard to combine with the prediction feature of the calendar view, since this feature assumes you know which statuses the project will run through. Below we describe the setup for which the calendar view (and a lot of the rest of the WebCenter functionality) is optimized: The typical setup is to have 1 task for each of the project statuses. These tasks can be simple tasks or workflows. Set for each task, in Task Edit which project status it completes:

Further typical is that the tasks follow a sequential chain, for example: Task Name Depends on/starts after Sets status to Briefing Project Creation Review Review & Approve Briefing Design Design Artwork Review & Approve Approval Approve & Correct Artwork WF

Design Artwork Complete

Loops will typically happen inside these tasks and will be implemented through workflows. So the statuses are seen as real stage gates which you pass once and then typically don’t go back anymore (nothing really stops you from going back and the system will try showing something logical but the view is surely not optimized for this situation). In the above example, briefing can be a complex operation with many people collaborating. In a simple WebCenter setup, this can be a simple task assigned to a briefing manager (for example a product manager) who collects all the info. In a complex WebCenter, this can be a complex workflow “Briefing workflow” with many steps and loops. However, the project remains in the status Briefing until this operation is finalized. Similarly, the Approval status corresponds to potentially many approval cycles on many documents. This can be either fully manual, or using staged approval or using workflow or a combination of all. We believe that the pattern of having 1 task for the main stages of a project is to be preferred over a project with only 1 big workflow task for following reasons:

• It creates a clearer overview of the project progress both in the calendar view as in the tasks page

• Backward planning can be applied at project creation • Schedule Tasks can be applied to re-calculate the project on its main

stages (while you typically don’t want to do this on all the little details) • Once a workflow is started, you cannot change it anymore. Therefore, you

don’t want to have your workflows running for many months. With shorter workflows, the time to get rid of older instances is shorter.

• If a stage is in its total non-applicable, it can be removed by hand by a project manager. With a workflow, the same is possible but it has to be foreseen in the design of the workflow. Reversely, a project manager can also add tasks as needed. The calendar view will automatically adapt itself.


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In case you have designed a workflow containing all tasks for a project, have a look whether there are natural splits in the workflow. The below example is a workflow spanning the entire project.

We recommend creating a template with 4 tasks in a simple sequence:

• Project initiation: simple task, same as in the workflow • 1-up design: a workflow containing the part in the red box • Translation: a workflow, same as in the big workflow • Packaging Layout: a workflow, same as in the big workflow

The Set project status in this workflow will not be needed as it can be set from the project creation. If that is too error prone, or more would be needed, the first task can become a little workflow doing the status change and the project creation. We continue to recommend workflows spanning the entire project for very repetitive work taking relatively short time spans (total project duration < 2 weeks). A good example might be a workflow to manage CAD design requests (the workflow stops as soon as the design is created and samples are made and delivered). In this case, limited planning is needed, but progress feedback is still very much appreciated.

4.1.9 Calendar view troubleshooting and frequently asked questions

4.1.9.1 The calendar view does not appear in my saved search Check whether you have checked the project status view checkbox

4.1.9.2 The status numbers are out of order The statuses are numbered based on the 'Show Label on Project Status Bar' saved search result layout option. If one of the projects has exotic statuses, this might confuse the numbering. Also when people have changed statuses “out of expected order”, the numbers might follow this chosen order. Select 'Number of Project Status' in case you want to use the global project status display order numbers defined in the admin section. Select 'Number in Order of Appearance' in case you want to number from 1 upwards as they appear on the page. Consequently there will always be a status with number 1 on the page, even if you search systematically for projects which only have very specific statuses out of a larger set. So 1 is normally the first status drawn on the page (it might be clipped off to the left though). This is typically the first active state of at least one of the projects (and in many cases the first active state of all projects).


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4.1.9.3 I don’t get a planning bar (grey bar) or parts are missing from it The grey bar only appears when you ask for it via the setup. Choose “show calendar with planning”. If this option is not available, you probably don’t have a lifecycle management license. Even then, your project must have tasks which set the respective project statuses. If no such tasks are found, their part of the grey bar will be omitted.

4.1.9.4 The planning part seems to contradict the predictions Most people expect a future stage to show the same duration in the planning and the prediction part. When the setup is ideal, this will indeed be the case. However, there are several situations in which the blocks might differ in size

In the above example, stage 1 has a longer estimation than planning. The cause in this case was that this task’s due date in the template was earlier than the starting date + lead time. Since the top part uses the lead time as the estimated duration and the bottom part just lists the due dates, there is a deviation. This is not a mistake or limitation, it merely shows the lack of consistency in the planning. Therefore we recommend:

• Make sure dependencies are set correctly (all tasks have the right predecessor(s)).

• In the template, run Schedule Tasks and use one of the rescheduling features to guarantee that the due dates and the lead times are consistent. (any of the Try buttons and also Use estimated dates as new due dates guarantees this).

• At least this gives a consistent starting point of the planning. During the execution, things can still deviate but this is more something you expect feedback on than something to automatically calculate away.

Another situation is where the schedule is much ahead. The calendar view will not reschedule tasks and will also not assume tasks will be rescheduled. This can show following situation:

The actual project is very much ahead on planning. It’s already starting stage 9 while it was supposed to be still in stage 1. Still the prediction will assume stage 9 will hang out there until its due date as this is the date which will be communicated to the assignee of this task (while it probably can be done much quicker). You can easily correct this situation by selecting the 'Apply forward planning' checkbox in the saved search result layout options.

4.2 Run reports as non-admin In WebCenter 12, reports (using the Jasper reporting framework) could only be run by administrators. In WebCenter 12.1 an option was added to allow other users to run a report. For each report, an administrator can enter a list of groups.


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• Go to Admin > Preferences > Reports • Click on the report to open its configuration • Add groups of users who can use the report • Add roles of users who can use the report (only for project reports –see

further)


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Users from these groups can then run the reports by going to Search > Reports.

*Note: The list is limited to the reports the user has rights to run. Project reports are not listed on this page.

4.3 Project reports A project report is a document filled with information about a single project. Project reports are made available from within the project, using the More Actions button. The main reason to run project reports is to download a pre-formatted form, typically a PDF. Examples are:

• Project briefing • Project closure report

In case the jrxml defines projectId as a parameter (with uiTypeID set to PROJECT), an additional checkbox 'Project Report' appears at the report details page. In case this option is enabled, this report will be used as a project report (only). The effects of defining a report as a project report are:

• The report will show up in the More Actions menu list of all projects (provided the current user can run the report, see section on running reports as non-admin). This menu is available from the project details page. In case there is only 1 project report configured, you are presented with this report directly. In case multiple reports are configured (for the current user), you need to select your report first.

• The report will not show up in the Report list in Search > Reports (also

not if you are an admin or in a group set for this report). • The group setting is still valid. This determines who can run the report (in

addition to the project manager). If no groups are set, only the project manager can run the report.

• In addition to groups, it is possible to select roles as well for project reports. People who have been assigned this role in the project can run the report. This way it is possible to create a report that can only be run by the CSR or the SALES person but not by other people (for example suppliers and other external people).

• When running the report, the parameters will no longer show a project selector (it is always the current project) and the folder selector will be


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limited to the folders of the current project (and further limited to what the current user is allowed to see).

• If 'Upload report to project' is selected, the report will be uploaded to the current project.

• If the administrator specified a folder name on the report details page and this folder exists in the project, it is preselected.

4.4 Bill of Materials

4.4.1 What is Bill of Materials? The Bill of Materials (hereafter “BOM”) is a representation of all parts and assemblies required to build a complete shippable product. It clarifies immediately what will be created and delivered during a project. In a WebCenter context, this list of documents (part of the project) representing the deliverables. The documents can represent an actual production file or can be a placeholder document. In WebCenter 12.1, every project has a BOM, which is by default empty. The BOM functionality is by default switched off for the entire WebCenter system. In this situation, no features will appear regarding the BOM. You switch on the BOM functionality by going to Admin > Preferences > General and enabling the checkbox “Use Bill of Materials”

4.4.2 Viewing the BOM of a project In the Project Details, there is a tab called “Bill of Materials”. The text header will indicate how many documents are linked to the BOM.

The BOM table is almost the same as the Documents table. The documents in the BOM can be viewed as Grid and with or without Thumbnails. A new version can be uploaded, the approval status is shown and there is a column with the tasks the


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document is linked too (if Task License available). The biggest difference is the “count”. The count is specific for a document within a project. (So the same document can be linked in multiple projects with a different count) Every document that has an attribute category assigned will indicate this by displaying the “+” button. By clicking it, the attribute category will expand. By clicking on the “-” button, the attribute category will be collapsed again. To expand/collapse the attributes of all documents in the BOM, just click on the + or – button in the header of the table. Tip 1: By default, the “Default” view for the attribute category will be displayed, but if the attribute category has a view called “BOM”, this view will be shown. Tip 2: The attributes of a document in the BOM are only shown in List view, not in Grid view.

4.4.3 Who can view and edit the BOM? Administrators and Project Managers can always see the BOM. Every other user with view permissions on all the documents linked to the BOM can see the BOM. If the user doesn’t have view permissions on one of the documents of the BOM a message “You don't have view permissions on one of the document(s) of the Bill of Materials.” is shown. Administrators and the project manager can always change the BOM. Other members can be allowed to change it, if they have the “Change BOM” permission. This permission can be set on the project’s Security page. It’s only possible to set the Change BOM permission on a project level, not on a folder level. If a user can change the attributes on the attributes page, the user can also change them on the BOM page. The screenshot below gives an overview of the rights for certain actions:

4.4.4 Adding documents to the Bill of Materials

4.4.4.1 Add via BOM page Adding a document to the BOM can be done directly in the BOM table. There are 3 ways to add a document from the BOM page:

- Upload: Upload a file from your hard disk to the project and add it to the BOM.


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- Copy: Copy a document from another project directly into the project and the BOM.

- Add to Bill Of Materials: Add a document from your current project to the BOM.

- New (optional): Add a document from a document library. For this option, you first need to setup a Document Template Library.

4.4.4.2 Add via documents One of the actions in the Actions menu of the Documents tab of the Project details is “Add to Bill of Materials”. This will add the selected documents to the BOM with count 1.

4.4.4.3 Via the upload page While uploading a document in the project (via the Upload button), there is the possibility of adding the document directly to the BOM. This will only be available if the user has “Change BOM”-rights. Check “Add to Bill of Materials” and optionally specify a count (default 1).

4.4.4.4 Add via Workflow With the “Add to BOM”-auto task in the workflow editor, it is possible to add documents to the BOM automatically. There is only one parameter Count that will typically be set by adding a document or project attribute (using smartnames) to the field.

Tip: All the documents in the BOM can also be selected by the “Select Document”-task

4.4.4.5 Add via Automation Engine When a Product is published from AE (Publish on WebCenter), the WebCenter Documents corresponding to the Product Parts are automatically added to the Bill of Materials of the specified project (see also section 0). The Automation Engine


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Product Amount for the Job (if present) is automatically updating the Count property of the Bill of Materials.

4.4.5 How to remove documents from the BOM? One of the items in the Actions menu of the BOM tab of the Project details is “Delete from Bill of Materials”. This will remove the selected documents only from the BOM of the project. Tip 1: when a document is removed from a project, the document will be removed from the BOM as well Tip 2: when a document is moved outside the current project, the document will be removed from the BOM as well

4.4.6 Adding documents to the BOM during project creation Displaying the BOM during project creation is configurable for every individual project or template.

• As an administrator, go to the project and click on Configure > Project Creation

• Check the Show Change BOM checkbox. • When “Required” is checked for Change BOM, the project cannot be

created without at least 1 document in the BOM. Once checked, projects created from this template or project will have a ‘Bill of Materials’ section in the project creation page. This allows the creator to edit the BOM during project creation. Most of the time, this table will be empty to start with, but it can appear pre-populated as well (see next section).

To add a document, the creator can either:

- Upload a new file. - Copy a document from another project. - Create a new document based on a document template (only if a

document template project/template is configured in Project/Template > Configure>Document Templates)

4.4.6.1 Based on template or other project If a template contains a BOM, and the Show Change BOM checkbox is checked in its configuration, the BOM setup of that template will be presented to the creator


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of new projects based on this template. The creator can still change the parameters (count, attributes…) or add/remove documents from the BOM.

If a project is created based on an existing project, the creator will get the option to copy or not copy the documents in the BOM. In the below example, documents from the BOM will be copied but the others will not.

Note: The BOM section is not visible when creating a blank project.

4.4.7 How to search for Bill of Materials

4.4.7.1 Search for projects that have a BOM In the advanced project search, one of the search criteria is to show only projects that have at least one document in the BOM. This can be achieved by selecting “Only Projects with Bill of Materials” for the “Bill of Materials” option.

4.4.7.2 Viewing BOM in Project Search If the “Bill of Materials” is set to “View” in the Project Search, a column will be added to the search results. In that column, an indication will be shown of how many documents are in the BOM and what their approval status is.


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The “Bill of Materials” column will indicate the number of documents in the BOM and a breakdown per approval status. When clicking on one of the icons, the documents will be shown per approval status (or all, if the total icon is clicked).

All BOM documents BOM documents that are force approved BOM documents that are approved BOM documents with a paused approval setup BOM documents that are waiting for approval BOM documents that are rejected BOM documents that are force rejected BOM documents that don’t have an approval setup

In this example, there are 8 documents in the BOM

- 1 forced approved - 1 approved - 1 with a paused approval state - 3 that are waiting for approval - 1 that is rejected - 1 that is force rejected

When clicking the “ ” pending icon the 3 BOM documents will be displayed.


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4.4.8 How to recognize if a document is part of a Bill of Materials In the documents tab, there is an icon “ ” next to the documents that are part of the BOM. Clicking that icon will take the user directly to the project’s BOM page.

On the document details page the icon “ ” indicates whether the document is a part of a BOM. Clicking this icon will take the user to the BOM page of that project. A document can be in more than one project BOM (if it is linked into multiple projects).

4.4.9 BOM changes in the Project History All changes made in your project related to the Bill of materials are shown in the Project History if you check the “Include in Project History” option for “Bill of Materials Changed” in the Notification settings (Admin > Preferences > Notifications or specific per project Project> Notifications). The list of changes you can see in your Project History are:

- A new document is added to the BOM - A document is removed from the BOM - The count has changed

4.4.10 BOM changes in the e-mail notifications You can choose to enable/disable the option to send e-mail notifications to the project manager or to all members of the project when something has changed in the BOM (via the option “Bill of Materials Changed” in Admin > Preferences > Notifications or specific per project Project> Notifications). In the same cases as for Project History a notification will be sent (if options enabled) if:

http://eaw11dd413:8081/wcr-web/projdetailsbom.jsp?projectID=00002_0000000739&menu_file=projsearc


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- A new document is added to the BOM - A document is removed from BOM - The count has changed

4.4.11 Connection between the BOM and ArtiosCAD Enterprise On ACAD Enterprise, you can see all your projects and (ArtiosCAD) documents from WebCenter. If you open a document in ArtiosCAD Enterprise, you can go to the project’s Bill of Materials where you will see the list of all the documents that are part of the BOM. For the ArtiosCAD files, you can change the count, change the document revision or add a print item. You can also change the order of the documents. This info is updated in WebCenter after clicking OK. When you work with revisions and you add a document to the BOM, the latest version within a revision is part of the BOM (so you actually link revisions into the BOM). Tip1: If a print item is specified for a document, it will also be shown on the BOM page in WebCenter in a separate column. Tip 2: Changing the order of the documents and changing the revision of a document are currently not available in WebCenter. Tip3: To work with the BOM in WebCenter 12.1 from ArtiosCAD Enterprise, you need ArtiosCAD Enterprise 12.1.


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4.5 Annotation Report Remark: This feature only works correctly in browsers supporting the HTML5 Canvas feature. At the time of writing these are:

• PC: Firefox version 18.0 and later • PC: Internet Explorer version 9.0 and later • PC: Google Chrome version 24.0 and later • Mac: Safari 5.1 and later • Mac: Firefox version 18.0 and later

The annotation report page allows previewing the annotations in a document without opening the Java viewer. It appears in a separate tab ‘Annotations’ of the document details. It is currently limited to graphic files (it does not work yet for CAD files).

The following columns are shown:

• Sequence number of the annotation (same as in the viewer). This list is not necessarily fully sequential (it can skip numbers when annotations were deleted)

• Enlarged view of the area where the annotation is put (can be switched off via the Report style filter). You can change the size of this view with the selector for the thumbnail size. You can either show all annotation in the default color or follow the color of the annotation as shown in the viewer (set via the user’s preferences and saved with the annotation).

• General view showing with a red rectangle which part is enlarged put (can be switched off via the Report style filter)

• Comment type (via an icon) • Comment text • Creator in the form of Lastname, Firstname (username) • Created and modified date

You can filter on:

• Review status: works the same as the bottom part of the filter in the viewer in the annotation list panel.


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• User: works the same as the top part of the filter in the viewer in the annotation list panel.

Click Print to get a printer-friendly page. This page takes away the WebCenter decoration and optimizes the view to be printed on a desktop printer. The print layout follows the chosen settings for the filters so what you see is what you get.


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4.6 Menu Builder Since WebCenter 10, menus can be customized based on user, group, company profile via editing menu xml files and uploading them via the page Admin/Preferences/Menus. In WebCenter 12.1, we have now a graphical user interface to change menus. The user can also still use the XML upload feature as it existed.

4.6.1 Adding new menus In the Admin/Preferences/Menus page, click on Add Menu button. This opens the Menu Builder page where you can easily create a new menu directly in the UI. It starts as a copy of the default menu. The user can further customize the menu by adding or deleting menu items. You can also add a new sub menu, which would appear under the main menu.

Remark: You can change not only the main (top) menu and its contents, but also the Project and Document details menus (which appear below the project and document header).

4.6.2 Updating menus The user can also update any of the existing customized menus. In the Admin/Preferences/Menus page, click on the desired custom Menu item in the list to start editing that menu in the Menu Builder. You can delete existing menu items or add new menu items by dragging menu items from the left side Menu Gallery to the Menu Builder canvas (located on the right side of the screen next to the Menu Gallery). When the user modifies a menu item, it will be marked automatically as custom (indicated by Default/Custom labels on top of each 2nd level menu on the canvas). The user can go back to the default menu by clicking the ‘Revert’ link. Changes to the menu will be discarded after user confirmation.


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Remark: The ‘Default’ menu cannot be modified (neither via the Menu Builder nor by uploading a custom XML menu file)

4.6.3 Removing items from the menu To remove a menu item, select it by mouse clicking and then click on the X mark on the right side of the menu item. Changes are saved into the system persistently only when you click on the save button at the bottom.

4.6.4 Adding items from the Menu Gallery into the Menu Builder canvas You can either add a completely new menu item or you can pick one from the gallery. All the built-in (sub) menu items are available in the Menu Gallery. The user can add those menu items into their new custom menu by drag and drop. The menu item does not go away from the gallery when the user does drag and drop on the appropriate location on the canvas, so you can add the same menu item in multiple Menus. Having duplicate Menu Items within a single Menu (or having the same Menu on the canvas more than once) is not allowed. Remark: When a Menu Item is selected within the Menu Gallery all its occurrences (if any) on the canvas are also highlighted (besides the item itself being highlighted in the Menu Gallery list). This behavior serves as a user feedback to help him identify whether a certain Menu Item is already in use in the currently processed custom User Menu.

4.6.5 Adding a new top menu or menu item You can create-add a new menu item to an existing menu or create a new Menu altogether and add it onto the canvas.


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Click on Add Custom Menu bottom (bottom right). This will show a blank ‘Add New Menu Item widget’ to fill up the new Menu Item details. To add a new menu item fill in the required Label Type, Label, URL type and URL value form fields (setting custom ‘Visible To’ property is optional) and select the desired Parent Menu. If ‘new menu’ option is selected as the target Parent Menu, it will be added as a separate new top Menu. Otherwise the new Menu Item will be added at the end of a specified Parent Menu’s list of Menu Items.

4.6.5.1 Menu Item properties Label type Allows specifying how the target Menu Item will get displayed in the menu structure. It can either use an universal label text (Simple Label type is chosen) that is always used and doesn’t change for different languages that the user might have selected or a managed localizable label can be specified (Existing Localized or New Localized type is chosen) and linked to the Menu Item – this allows the user to specify different localized variants of the target label that can change depending on the active language preference of the User. For more details on Label selection please check section 4.6.6 Changing Menu label translations). Visible To This section contains a set of toggles that allow specification of what category of Users will be able to access the target Menu Item. ‘Groups’ toggle has an additional edit field attached which allows specifying an explicit set of Groups (by their Name) that limit the visibility of the processed Menu Item to User members of any of the set Groups. Individual Group Names are split by a semicolon (;) character within this field (mouse-hover context help linked to this edit field also helps the User to fill in this field in an expected format).


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For more details on Label selection please check section 4.6.7. Set visibility). URL Type URL Type selector allows switching between several types of target web link that the processed Menu Item will direct the browser upon clicking it. Besides using a classic ‘direct URL link’ (Provide URL option) a User can also define Menu Item that, when clicked, will launch a Project Creation based on a specified Template (Create Project with Template option) and others. For more details on Menu Item URL Type selection please check section 4.6.11. Other menu types). Parent Menu Parent Menu selector is used to specify where the new Menu Item should be inserted within the currently edited Menu Structure upon creation. When ‘New Menu’ option is selected the Menu Item will in fact become a whole new Menu (which gets created at the end of the current set of Menus – at the very right-side area of the Menu Builder Canvas) upon saving it. All the other items in the selector correspond to existing menus already located on the canvas. By choosing one of them the Menu Item will be added to the list of Menu Items under the specified Menu. This selector is editable only when creating a new Menu Item – changing Parent Menu for existing Menu Items is not possible.

4.6.6 Changing Menu label translations You can select from three different label types to label your Menu Item.

1. Simple label: non-localized label which will be directly used for displaying the Menu Item by the Menu System.

2. Existing Localized: you choose an existing Language Tag (that is currently

managed by WCR Language Manager) with the currently active labels for that Tag being shown to the User for reference; after choosing a specific existing Language Tag the User is able to customized its localizations but he is informed that by doing so all the occurrences of this label will be changed throughout the entire system (i.e. including all the other menus that use the same Label Tag among its Menu Items)


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3. New Localized: the user specifies a new unique Language Tag which will

then be saved and managed by the Language Manager; after choosing a new custom Language Tag he supplies values of the appropriate language localizations for his new label (supplying English label is mandatory)

NOTE: The ‘Language Tag’ is an auto-complete field. When the user starts typing it shows the existing language tags starting with the typed characters; you may select an existing tag or go with a new tag – this determines the Label Type you want to use (see above.)

4.6.7 Set visibility The menu system allows showing menu items to certain types of users and not to others. ‘Visible To’ part shows different types of User roles. When selected the appropriate menu item will only be visible to the selected roles - otherwise it is visible to all.


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A special case of visibility is enabled for ‘Groups’ checkbox. The additional edit field lets the User specify explicit Groups (by their Group name; having multiple Groups in a list is possible – semicolon character is used to split multiple groups within this field) – if the Menu Item uses this visibility type it will only be visible to Users that are members of any of the specified Groups.

4.6.8 Editing Menu item To edit a menu item, select the menu item by mouse click – by doing this the ‘Edit Menu Item widget’ shows up with the details of the currently selected Menu Item. You can use the widget to modify the selected Menu Item and once done, click on the Update button. Remember: The changes will be saved only when you click save button at the bottom.

4.6.9 Re-Order menu User will be able to re-order menus by dragging and dropping them to the desired place on the canvas. Re-ordering individual Menu Items for a specific Menu is also possible. It is also done via drag-and-drop behavior. This only works for re-sorting items within a single Menu – you cannot drag a Menu Item and drop it into a different Menu on the canvas.

4.6.10 Saving the changes Any changes that you do on the page will be saved to databases only when you click on the save button.

4.6.11 Other Menu Types User can also add following as menu items to their custom menu (via URL Type selector).

1. Saved Search a. When you select this option, a drop down list appears with the list

of saved searches. You can select one and add it as a menu item. 2. Create Project with Characteristic

a. When this option is selected, a drop down list appears with the list of characteristics. You can select one and add it as a menu item.

3. Create Project with Template


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a. When this option is selected, a drop down list appears with the existing templates, choose one and add it as a menu item.

4. Project List with Characteristic a. Same as point no 2.

4.7 External Web Connectivity

4.7.1 What is External Web Connectivity? In WebCenter 12.1, it is possible to set up a connection to an external system and show the content in

4.7.2 How can you setup an External Web Connection? In the Admins -> Configuration -> External Web Connections, the admin user can manage External Web connections. These configured connections will be used to configure external links in WebCenter pages. The page shows a list of existing External Web connections. There, you have the options as described below.

4.7.2.1 Create a new External Web connection To create a new External Web Connection, Click the New External Web Connection link in the External Web Connections page in the admin configuration menu. When a new External Web connection is created, the user needs to provide following information:

1. Name: this is a unique name to identify the connection 2. URL: The web address of the service. It needs to be a URL that can be

accessed either by the front-end or by the back-end. Note that the URL can contain smartnames

3. Type: the output format of the service. It will be either XML or HTML.

Smartnames The URL can be constructed via smartnames. You can easily add smartnames by clicking the logo next to the URL field ( ). At the moment the request is sent, the smartnames will be resolved to the actual values of the current context (project, logged in user). For instance, if there is a service http://ExternalSystem/OrderInformation.jsp and the project name in WebCenter maps to an orderID, then the configured URL will be: http:// ExternalSystem/OrderInformation.jsp?orderID=[Project Name]. The actual request sent will be something like: http:// ExternalSystem/OrderInformation.jsp?orderID=Order_83289 Supported smartnames:

• All basic project properties

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• All project attributes. • Requestor smartnames ([Requestor UserName], [Requestor Location],

etc…) In this context, ‘Requestor’ indicates the user who is logged in.

Test Connection The details page for a web service has a Test button. When clicking this button, a request is sent to the web service and the answer is presented below the Test button. The test button will only check if a connection can be made to the URL and shows the user whether or not the URL is reachable. Note: To test the URL, smartnames are not taken into account, assuming that the smartnames will only be used for parameter and not for the actual service.

4.7.2.2 Change existing setting Once an external web connection is created, the admin user can change all the settings by clicking on the name of the connection in the list. When changing the name of the connection, the user must ensure that this name is not in use in any configuration.

4.7.2.3 Delete External Web connections Select 1 or multiple External Web connections and select Delete from the action menu. Note that deleting a connection that is in use will break the pages that use that connection. The system will show an error message on these pages.

4.7.3 How can you integrate an External Web Connection? An External Web Connection can be displayed in three ways:

- In the Top Level Menu (Header menu) - In the Project Level Menu - In a My Work Section

Note that connections in the Project Level Menu are aware of the project context and the user context, while the other two options are only aware of the user context. These contexts can be used for smartnames.

4.7.3.1 Top Level Menu Once you have configured an External Web connection in the admin section, the admin user can adapt the menu.xml to have an extra tab in the 1st -level (top level) menu, which links to the External Web connection. To set this up, the admin user can download the default menu and locate the commented out section stating with:

<!-- External Web Connection (1-level Menu) In case the External Web connection is of the type ‘XML’, the user should take a copy of the ‘custom_example\externalwebconnection\externalwebtransform.xsl’ and put it under the ‘custom\externalwebconnection\externalwebtransform.xsl’.


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Changes to this XSL can be made if needed, and the xsl file can be renamed. Note that this structure follows the standard way of working when we install custom specific parts on the webserver.

In the menu.xml, the user needs to uncomment following section:

<menuitem> <name>MYEXTERNALWEB_INFO</name> <labeltag> MYEXTERNALWEB_INFO_TAG</labeltag> <url>myexternalwebinfo.jsp?ExternalWebConfigName=<Name of your external web configuration>&XSLTransform=<Name of your xsl transformation in custom/externalwebconnection directory>&CallFromWebserver=<0/1 depending on whether the call to the external system needs to be made on the tomcat server (1), or the jboss server (0)></url> </menuitem>

where ‘<Name of your external web configuration>’ is replaced by the name of the External Web connection and, in case of an XSL type connection, ‘<Name of your xsl transformation in custom/externalwebconnection directory>’ is replaced by the name of the xsl transformation in the ‘custom\externalwebconnection’. If the file is not renamed, this parameter can be omitted. The parameter “CallFromWebserver” determines whether the call to the External Web connection is made from the TomCat webserver (CallFromWebserver=1), or from the application server (CallFromWebserver=0). If the parameter is omitted, the call is made from the JBoss server. For example, when we want to use the External Web connection ‘ExternalWebConfig1’, and we do not rename the externalwebtransform.xsl, the section to be included in the menu.xml will be:

<menuitem> <name>MYEXTERNALWEB_INFO</name> <labeltag>MYEXTERNALWEB_INFO_TAG</labeltag> <url>myexternalwebinfo.jsp?ExternalWebConfigName=ExternalWebConfig1</url> </menuitem>

After uploading this new menu to the system and using it, a new menu item will appear. When then clicking on this menu item, the system will send a request to the configured service, and paint the result in a WebCenter-decorated page. This page will contain the normal WebCenter navigation and the main content section of the page will be:

• For a HTML type: the returned HTML. The web service must make sure this HTML is sufficiently self-contained

• For an XML type: the HTML resulting from converting this XML with the configured XSL

Restrictions: you can only have one extra External Web tab in the top level item per menu file. Details:

• For the first level menu item, it does not make sense to use project-related smartnames in the External Web configuration since there is no project context in the first level menu.

• If user-related information needs to be sent to the External Web connection, the Requestor smartnames ([Requestor UserName], [Requestor Location], etc… ) should be used. In this context, ‘Requestor’ indicates the user who is logged in.

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4.7.3.2 Project Level Menu Once you have configured an External Web connection in the admin section, the

admin user can adapt the menu.xml to have an extra tab in the project details page, which links to the External Web connection.

To set this up, the admin user can download the default menu and locate the commented out section starting with:

<!-- External Web Connection (Project-level Menu) In case the External Web connection is of the type ‘XML’, the user should take a copy of the ‘custom_example\externalwebconnection\externalwebtransform.xsl’ and put it under the ‘custom\externalwebconnection\externalwebtransform.xsl’. Changes to this XSL can be made if needed, and the xsl file can be renamed. Note that this structure follows the standard way of working when we install custom specific parts on the webserver. In the menu.xml, the user needs to uncomment following section:

<menuitem> <name>PROJDETAILSEXTERNALWEBINFO</name> <labeltag>PROJDETAILSEXTERNALWEBINFO_TAG</labeltag> <url>projdetailsexternalwebinfo.jsp?ExternalWebConfigName=<Name of your External Web configuration>&XSLTransform=<Name of your xsl transformation in custom/externalwebconnection directory>&CallFromWebserver=<0/1 depending on whether the call to the External Web system needs to be made on the tomcat server (1), or the jboss server (0)></url> </menuitem>

where ‘<Name of your External Web configuration>’ is replaced by the name of the External Web connection and ‘=<Name of your xsl transformation in custom/externalwebconnection directory>’ is replaced by the name of the xsl transformation in the ‘custom\externalwebconnection’. If the file is not renamed, this parameter can be omitted. The parameter “CallFromWebserver” determines whether the call to the External Web connection is made from the TomCat webserver (CallFromWebserver=1), or from the application server (CallFromWebserver=0). If the parameter is omitted, the call is made from the application server. For example, when we want to use the External Web connection ‘ExternalWebConfig2’, and we rename the xsl to ExternalWebProjecttransform.xsl, the section to be included in the menu.xml will be:

<menuitem> <name>PROJDETAILSEXTERNALWEBINFO</name> <labeltag>PROJDETAILSEXTERNALWEBINFO_TAG</labeltag> <url>projdetailsexternalwebinfo.jsp? ExternalWebConfigName=ExternalWebConfig2&XSLTransform=ExternalWebProjecttransform.xsl&CallFromWebserver=1</url> </menuitem>

Restrictions: you can only have one extra External Web menu item in each project.

4.7.3.3 Home page section When you have configured an External Web connection, you can setup a homepage section based on this External Web connection. To do this, you need to create a new homepage section in the Admin -> Preferences -> My Work. Create a new ‘My work’ section of the type ‘Generic’. In


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the URL field, paste following reference: Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.name>/<Instance name>/myexternalwebinfo.jsp?ExternalWebConfigName=<Name of your External Web configuration>&XSLTransform=<Name of your xsl transformation in custom/externalwebconnection directory>>&CallFromWebserver=<0/1>&homepageSection=1 Note: the difference between this configuration and the menu-like configuration is that this type of configuration takes an extra parameter, homepageSection, and puts it to 1. For instance: if we have an External Web connection named ExternalWebConfig3, and we have an XSL transform ‘ExternalWebHomepage.xsl’, then the URL will look like: http://webcenter2.esko.com/WebCenter_Inst/myexternalwebinfo.jsp?ExternalWebConfigName= ExternalWebConfig3&XSLTransform=ExternalWebHomepage.xsl&homepageSection=1

4.8 Forgot Password

4.8.1 How to setup? By default, the Forgot Password link is not shown. An admin can set it up through the WebCenter GUI or it can be configured manually. For the GUI approach, go as admin to Admin > General > Preferences > Customizations. Enable the checkbox at the bottom in the “Other” section “Show Forgot Password link”. For setting it up manually, go to the customizationConfig.xml in the custom folder of the web server. If there is not such a file, read the WebCenter Customization Guide to create one. Add the following XML between the WebCenterCustomizationConfig XML tags: <ForgotPassword show="1"/> If the option is activated, a link under the login button on the login page of WebCenter appears “Forgot Password?”.

4.8.2 How does it work? If a user clicks on the Forgot Password link on the login page, a pop-up opens with two textboxes where the user can enter his username (primary choice) or e-mail. After clicking “Request New Password” the user is looked up based on the entered username or e-mail address. If the username is not filled in, the e-mail address is used to lookup the user. WebCenter will generate a random and temporary password for the user. An e-mail is sent to the e-mail address of the user and contains the username, the temporary password and a link to login immediately. If the user logs in with the new password (e.g. by clicking the link) he will be forced to change the password. When a user does a request to reset his password, a message is also written in the User History. The e-mail uses the e-mail customization framework to be able to customize/translate the messages in the e-mail. Therefore a new folder “user” is added that contains “user” notifications like “Reset Password”. The file


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“reset_password_example_source.xml “contains an example of the data that can be used in the e-mail. For more info about customizing e-mails, cf. WebCenter Customization Guide. Notes:

- If there is more than one user linked to the entered e-mail address, the password can’t be reset and an error message is shown.

- For security reasons, if there were more than 6 reset password requests in the last 5 minutes, the user can’t request a new password. The user should then wait and try again later.

- As the password of an LDAP user isn’t managed by WebCenter, it can’t be reset via Forgot Password.

- The password of the system users (Admin, CADX and CLEANUP) can’t be reset.

- For every ‘Request New Password’ request, a log message is written in the Tomcat log file with the IP address of the requestor.

4.9 Viewer and Workflow applet preferences The WebCenter Viewer and Workflow Java applets have previously been running as unsigned applets because the in normal operation needs no interaction with the client workstation data. With the changes made in Java 1.7.0_21 (Windows and Mac OS X 10.7+), Oracle have changed the security warnings to make Unsigned applets look rather risky.

Checking the “I accept the risk and want to run this app.” checkbox will allow you to click Run and open the applet. Checking the “Do not show this again for this app” will prevent this dialog to be shown every time you start the applet. To improve on this experience, a new user preference setting has been introduced: Viewer and Workflow Applet. There are 3 possible settings:

- Signed (sandboxed): a signed version of the viewer will be loaded with security settings telling the browser to run the applet in a strict sandboxed environment with no access to workstation resources (like the unsigned


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applet). Since this applet comes with a valid signature of Esko, the browser shows a more friendly dialog upon applet startup:

The “Do not show this again for apps from publisher and location above” option is checked by default and (if leaved on) will make the showing of this dialog a one-time event. As for the unsigned applet, the sandboxed applet will give the user a warning when entering the print function (Viewer only)

Due to a bug in the browser plug-in coming with Java 1.7.0_21, you strangely have to leave the “Always allow this applet to access the printer” OFF to avoid getting a security error:

- Signed (not sandboxed): with this setting, the applet has a valid signature, but is not sandboxed (it can potentially requests additional access to the client computer). The message on first startup indicates this:


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The “Do not show this again for apps from the publisher and location above” allows to show this dialog only this one time, but the checkbox is off by default. Unlike the Signed (sandboxed) and Unsigned applets, no warning will be shown when entering the print function (Viewer only) as the user have already given access to the applet on start-up.

- Unsigned: this option will run the applet as a traditional unsigned (and therefore fully sandboxed) applet. The message on startup is shown in the start of this section. The behavior on print is the same as described for the Signed (sandboxed) applet.

The “Viewer and Workflow Applet” can be set at system level in Admin, Preferences, General, or at the level of a single user - either from Admin, Users page or from the user’s own My WebCenter, My Preferences page. The installed system default is “Signed (sandboxed)”. This default will be used for all users until a change is made to their individual user preferences. What setting to choose? For most users, the default setting “Signed (sandboxed)” will work fine while not needing to allow the applet any special access to client computer resources. For frequent users, it might be beneficial to switch to the “Signed (not sandboxed)” setting as this will prevent any warnings to be shown on printing (Viewer only). Also users of Mac OS X 10.6 (Java 1.6.0) might want to switch to the “Signed (not sandboxed)” to prevent a warning being issued when leaving the viewer by clicking the X button:


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4.10 Smaller Improvements • E-Mail Notifications:

a. Document Version Uploader is among the ‘Involved People’ for ‘Approval Cycle Finished’ event.

• Document Download Link: a. This functionality is now also available to regular Project Members

that have Download permission for a given Project Document Version (besides the Project Manager of the parent Project – who was the only one able to generate Document Download Link in the previous version of WebCenter)


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5. Workflow Improvements The main addition to workflow in WebCenter 12.1 is to recover from failure. In WebCenter 12, when a node goes in failure (typically caused by user mistakes), the workflow stopped without a possibility to restart. In WCR 12.1 you will have the option to:

• Retry a failed node • Stop the workflow • Relaunch the workflow

5.1 Retry a workflow node In the picture below, a workflow failed while trying to start an approval cycle (typically happens because there is no approval setup). Anybody with the right to view the workflow can right click on the failure icon (the red ellipse) and click on “Retry”. Typically that user will have fixed the problem before doing a “retry” (in this example, by adding an approval setup to the project, folder or document).

Example: the user fixed the issue and clicks Retry

Result of the operation: the workflow has now started the approval. The red [1] remains to indicate the workflow’s history


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5.2 Stop a workflow A user with task edit rights (Admin, PM and members with task edit rights) can stop the workflow. When stopping a workflow, all the tokens that are currently executed will be cancelled and the token will be moved to the error node. In the typical case that there is only 1 branch active in the workflow, it will go to the error node of the current task. Stopping a workflow will delete all the subtasks that are not completed yet.

5.3 Relaunch a workflow at a certain point A user with task edit rights (so Admin, PM and members with task edit rights) can right-click on any output pin with a number and request a relaunch. This will re-create a new workflow task that is similar to the task that gets relaunched.

1. The workflow needs to be stopped first (see above) 2. This only works for first-level workflows, not for workflows which are

already started from another workflow.

5.4 Error handler node In the workflow constructs gallery, there is a node called “Error Handler”. You can drag this node onto the canvas.

The Error Handler node has one output pin that can be used to attach any other node. But you can’t connect any other node to an Error Handler node (acts the same as the start node). When a workflow node has a failure, it will check the error dot of the node. If this dot is NOT connected to anything, and there is an error handler node on the canvas, the system will put the token on the output dot of the error handler. In the below example, if Start Approval Cycle goes in failure (typically because there is no approval setup), it will check the bottom red dot. This one is not connected, so control will be given to the error handler, which passes to Send error email. This will send an e-mail as configured in this node. Then control passes back to the node from where it started (which is the Start Approval Cycle). The person receiving the e-mail can then take action and retry the approval node.


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*Note: This example shows how to use the error handler node in a Workflow. Please make sure to NOT connect this error handler node (or the following nodes) to the main Workflow as this will lead to unexpected results. *Note: You only can add one Error Handler node in your canvas, if you try to add a second one an error message will be displayed

5.5 Feedback from the Error Handler node It is good to know where the error happened, so by clicking on the token (the green 1 at send e-mail), a route is shown (in yellow) of where the error occurred.

Example: when clicking on the token, the token route is shown


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6. Installer and serviceability improvements

6.1 Database Update tool Running a WebCenter database update used to be a fully manual process performed by the person responsible for the installation of the given WebCenter release kit. Ideally, the database update was executed right after the installation process completed, before starting the WebCenter Application and Web Server Windows services. In many cases however, the person responsible for the installation forgot to update the database (or ‘create the database schema’ in case of a fresh and clean WCR installation), which led to an unusable state of the application. The new “ServerTools” implementation allows system admins to run the WebCenter database update directly from the WebCenter installer itself.

6.1.1 Gathering database connection input A ‘Database Configuration’ dialog is displayed during the installation process, prompting the user to enter certain database connection parameters.

The user picks the database type (Database program), provides the database host (Database server system) and Database Instance Name (for MS SQL Server) or Database System Identifier (SID) (for Oracle server).


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The new checkbox, ‘Run DB update scripts during installation’, determines whether the database should be updated during the installation process. If it is enabled, an additional field is displayed, where the password of the default database administrator user for the chosen database server should be entered (DB sysadmin connection password). If the opportunity to run the database update directly during the installation was not chosen, it is still possible to run the update manually afterwards.

6.1.2 Installer-time database update progress and feedback If the user had chosen to run the database update scripts, the tool will be executed automatically during the installation process. When the database update starts, a system console readout window with user feedback is displayed, showing the progress made. Individual SQL statement blocks are shown as they are being executed.

6.1.3 Manual execution of the database update tool During the completion of the WebCenter installation a re-configured, based on info supplied during the installation, database update tool is copied to a predefined location within the WebCenter space on the Application Server hard disk drive. Running this tool allows an explicit update of the WebCenter database at any chosen time. Executing this batch file requires at least one extra command line parameter to be passed, the password of the default database administrator user for the target WebCenter database server (as a string parameter, so enclosed in double quotes). The tool also accepts other extra parameters to be specified. By running the batch file without any parameters the tool will show the user what parameters he can use and the required sequence of those as expected by the tool.

6.1.4 Manual execution update progress and feedback Just like when the update tool is executed from the installer directly, the batch-file (manual) execution also displays a system console application, indicating the progress made, by showing individual SQL statement blocks as they are being executed.

6.1.5 Remote database update Unlike the previous form of running the database updates, the ServerTools implementation allows full-scope update of a database that is located on a remote server – including storing file blobs sitting on a different machine from where the database physically resides in. If the target remote database server is accessible from the WebCenter Application Server (from where the database update is being launched – either during the installation or manually afterwards) the appropriate database update works as if that server is local.


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7. Ease of use Improvements

7.1 Searchable Dropdown Lists There are several locations in WebCenter where regular dropdown lists have been replaced by searchable dropdown lists. These new widgets only load a limited number of results, which means they load faster. The user no longer needs to wait for a long time to load all the available items and then scroll through a very long and tedious list to locate the desired item; he can immediately start typing in the field and find the item he needs. Previously long lists, like lists of projects, would take a long time to load, sometimes causing the system to 'hang'. With the new widget, users can easily find their desired item in fast way, even from very large data sets. This widget has been applied in various places where long lists were loaded before. For example: the lists of projects or templates on the Project Creation page, the lists of projects on different Upload pages and in several places on the Reporting pages. When you start typing while the SDrop is active (SDrop becomes active by clicking on it), the result list is filtered instantly. The matching of items to the filter is case insensitive. Only items that contain the entered string are shown to the user. When too many items contain the entered string, the list is truncated. It is possible to use wildcards *and ?in the filter. The *is used as a wildcard for none, one or multiple characters. The ?wildcard is used for replacing 1 character.

When no wildcards are used, the filtering mechanism adds * wildcards to the beginning and end of the filter, in this way all words that contain the filter are shown. When using wildcards in the filter, this behavior changes: no * wildcards are added to the filter, only items that match the filter show up. Some examples: Filter: coffee Filter: cof?ee Filter: cof?ee* A Coffee project V X X Coffee V V V Cofsee X V V Coffee project V X V Cofsee project X X V An Cofsee project X X X When you start typing a filter, it is possible that not all items are available in the browser.


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The widget shows intermediate results: items which are available in the browser and match the filter are shown immediately. In the background a request is made to the server to get new information. A message and a loading indicator are shown while the system is loading new information.

As soon as the information is available in the browser, the widget is updated and the new information is shown.

7.2 Default landing page for project/documents In Admin/Preferences and in the user preferences, the ‘landing page’ for a project and document can be configured. This is the page shown when you click through from another page (typically an overview page). Typical use cases are:

• Show the attributes page or the approval page for a document (instead of the Action history)

• Show the attributes page or BOM page for a project (instead of the documents page).

7.3 Choice of default folder for document upload in tasks It is now possible to select a default folder for documents uploaded via a task execution page. It is still possible to change this folder manually. Setting up the default folder In the Task Type, in the documents section, enable the option “Set default folder for uploaded documents”. When the option is enabled, the user can type the desired folder name. If a project contains a folder with that name, this folder will be selected as default folder. Effect of the default folder In the Task Execution Page, in the documents section, if you add a document, the folder will be preselected. It is still possible to change this folder to any other folder the current user has upload rights to.


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The default folder applies to upload, copy and new. When however linking an existing document to the task, the document will remain in its original location. It is also possible to click “Upload Multiple Documents”, which brings you to the Multiple Upload Page. On this page, the default folder will be preselected in the selection at the top of the page. This can be changed manually and will be applied for all documents selected.

7.4 Sorting options on Tasks Overview and Schedule Tasks pages There are 5 sorting options available on Tasks overview page:

• byDependencies (default): Tasks are initially sorted by start date (start date of not yet started tasks is calculated as due date – lead time). Then tasks are reorganized so all dependent tasks are behind their predecessors keeping as much of the original order as possible. As a last step all workflow sub-tasks are moved right after their master workflow tasks to form a tree-like structure shown on image above.

• byDue Date: Tasks with the earlier due dates first • byStatus: Sorting by status put not started tasks at top, followed by “in

progress” tasks, then completed and failed tasks at the end. • byAssignee: Sorting based on names of tasks assignees (owners). First

are put all tasks with role assignees (sorted alphabetically by role name), then all tasks owned by groups, followed by tasks assigned to users. Users are primarily sorted alphabetically by Last name, then first name.

• byName: Sorting based on task names All the sorting is case insensitive. Tasks on Schedule tasks page are sorted “by Dependencies”. The sorting cannot be changed on this page.

7.5 Inline help Difficult features now have an inline help function. When a user clicks on the help icon, context-aware help information is shown to the user. By default the documentation from help.esko.com is shown, but this behavior is customizable. It is possible to customize a specific help topic, or to link a subset of help topics to a specific manual or page. The behavior of the help functionality can be configured in the custom folder.


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8. Improvements to the Automation Engine integration With the new 12.1 release you can add documents (products on AE), from Automation Engine to your WebCenter project and add all of them to the Bill of Materials. Also, you can add some product parameters and a count (amount on AE) in the Product and the document attributes will be updated automatically. *Note: the name of the product parameters on Automation Engine and the attributes on WebCenter must have the same name to connect both.


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9. Performance Improvements WebCenter 12.1’s main improvement is performance and reliability under heavy use.

9.1 Supported maximum load and number of users Following table gives an overview of maximum performance. Disclaimer: The figures below are only indicative. They are not a real guarantee that any such setup will work in any environment. The actual limitations depend on usage profile of the concurrent users and the actual hardware being deployed. The limitations are also not a hard limit but more a gradual deterioration of the experience (see also the picture below)

Topic WebCenter 12 WebCenter 12.1 Concurrent users or ArtiosCAD clients *

125 225

Projects 50,000 300,000 Documents 250,000 1,000,000 Documents in a single project 1,000+ 10,000+ Attributes/project or document or task when lots of projects/documents/tasks

50 600

Tasks in a single project 200 1,000 Concurrent active workflows 500 2,000 Concurrent viewing 100 200 File store size ** No real limitation No real limitation

*: an ArtiosCAD Enterprise client loads the server about as much as a concurrent user **: WebCenter has no real limitations of the amount of (non database) data stored in it. This is mostly graphics files and their view files but also large sustaining documents. When the disk is almost full, performance suffers heavily. Bandwidth to the hard disk is the real limitation.

Out of our testing, we compiled following comprehensive picture of the user experience against practical numbers of users. This picture is not derived from mathematical calculations but is a comprehensive representation of the psychological feeling when working with the application.


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The blue line shows that WebCenter 12 has a good user experience under low load but loses fairly rapidly its best experience. Assuming that people will start complaining heavily when user experience goes below 60%, 120 concurrent users needs to be seen as the practical limitation. This is confirmed by a real installation with this number of users. The red line shows that WebCenter 12.1 continues to have almost the best user experience until over 100 concurrent users, from where onwards it has graceful degradation until a level is reached where it bounces against hard limitations (mainly the 32 bit memory limitation, but also file store disk speed). The bottom scale is dependent on usage patterns.

9.2 Detailed improvements

9.2.1 Uploading from ArtiosCAD Enterprise Uploading ARD and MFG files from ArtiosCAD Enterprise is now faster, because required metadata is now prepared on the ArtiosCAD client instead of needing to connect to the server's CAD-X component.

9.2.2 Attributes Attributes are now displayed faster, certainly when you have attribute categories with lots of attributes. Saving big attribute categories is now faster and more reliable. However we continue to advise to limit the size of attribute categories to about 300 attributes.

9.2.3 My Tasks and My Handled Tasks The My Work section 'My Tasks' now loads significantly faster. The list of tasks is now also clipped to avoid long waiting times when there are a lot of tasks on a user's name.

9.2.4 Projects pages The following projects pages now load significantly faster: Projects Admin page Projects page Projects I manage Projects I am invited to

9.2.5 User/group operations Remove user from group The admin action to remove a specific user from a group has been optimized so that it now takes (far) less time. Dependency checks have also been revised and updated to clarify what the dependencies are and how to resolve them. Remove group The admin function to remove a group has also been optimized so that it takes less time. The dependency checks are inline with the 'Remove user from group' functionality. Add user to group


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Adding (or removing) a user to/from a group no longer forces the search indexer to do heavy updates. This is specifically a large improvement for large groups and groups invited into many projects (>10,000)

9.2.6 Search index size The size of the search index will typically shrink with a factor 2-5. This diminishes the memory footprint and leads to a general improvement of speed and reliability of WebCenter.

9.2.7 Search speed Running a search, specifically when asking for a lot of search results (100 or more per page), is now about 12 times faster. Saving a search to Excel benefits from the same speed improvement. Where saving a search result with 1,000 hits took between 30 and 100 seconds in the past (depending on the requested details and the IT setup), it now typically takes less than 10 seconds. Executing search from ArtiosCAD Enterprise also heavily benefits as the settings typically ask for 100 or more search results and it always downloads all details for the found projects or documents (to create the best user experience).

9.2.8 Database size When moving from WebCenter 12 or older to WebCenter 12.1, the database might shrink. Notably attributes and task specifications take now far less database space. Whether you are actually going to see (a big) difference depends heavily on your configuration.


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10. Viewer Improvements The Viewer features two new tools for validating graphics files: Barcode and Braille. For CAD files, we added the ability to compare two selected CAD files and the Viewer now has full support for Revision letters as used by the ArtiosCAD design tool.

10.1 Barcode The Barcode tool allows the user to select an area containing a barcode and get per-channel information on the found barcode type and value as well as estimations of the technical parameters Barcode Magnification and Bar Width Reduction. All barcode information is derived from the rendered data only so this provides a valuable tool for validating that the implemented barcodes meets the specified criteria. Note: the barcode estimation is done one channel at a time. There is no checking that other channels do not obscure the readability of the barcode. This tool uses technology from Global Vision inc., a market leading supplier of graphics QA tools.

10.2 Braille The Braille tool allows the user to select the Braille language and an area containing Braille text and get back per-channel information on the found Braille text, including multi-line text, interpreted in the selected language. The Braille information is derived from the rendered data only so this provides a valuable tool for pre-production validation. This tool uses technology from Global Vision inc., a market leading supplier of graphics QA tools.

10.3 CAD comparison The new CAD comparison tool allows for a highly flexible way of comparing CAD data. Open any two (or more) supported CAD files (design or manufacturing) in the viewer, select what documents to compare in the Document Select panel exactly as it is done for graphics files (the Compare in Viewer function in the WebCenter GUI sets this up automatically) and use alignment and rotation tools to position the parts to compare on top of each other. For files with multiple versions/revisions, any revision can be selected in the comparison. When opening a file with multiple versions in non-compare mode, the viewer is automatically set up to facilitate comparison with the previous version. Once the documents to compare are selected, any of a list of compare modes can be selected:

- Blinking: Will switch between the compared documents every second while allowing the use of zoom, pan, and layer select to focus on the area of interest.

- Overlay (View Both - Show Differences): will use the selected compare colors to render the compared documents in different colors using blending where they overlap allowing to spot areas where the two documents differ.

- Side by side: show the compared documents side-by-side while keeping alignment fixed during zoom, pan, etc.

Note: WebCenter also has the ability to compare (overlay) any graphics file with any CAD file – with tools to align correctly the CAD file on top of the graphics file.


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10.4 CAD revisions Revision letters are now showed together with the WebCenter version number in all relevant locations in the Viewer. During comparison this makes it easy for the user to select the correct revision to be compared.


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11. Known issues and limitations

11.1 Document search result of linked documents There is a changed behavior of the search result of linked documents (a document that is included in more than one project) compared to WebCenter 12.0. The difference only applies to following situation:

• The user can see the document in the first project • AND The user is invited individually in the second project but cannot see

the document (meaning he/she is denied access to the folder in which this document resides)

• This same user is not the project manager of any of the projects Where this user sees this document in search results in WebCenter 12, he/she will NOT see this document in WebCenter 12.1. This is caused by a performance optimization. Remark that the situation is contradictory, but it can obviously happen by accident or even somewhat on purpose.

11.2 Cascading dropdowns Following limitations/tips hold for WebCenter 12 and are not (yet) improved in 12.1:

• The Excel sheets must be *.xls files and not *.xlsx files. Please make sure to save your Excel sheets as *.xls (the old Excel file). This should not create any limitations on the functionality.

• The current driver for Excel sheets does not support Japanese (and probably other Asian) characters. Installing another driver can help solving this problem, but at the time of writing, Esko does not have an out-of-the-box recommendation.

• It is good practice to delete the first empty lines at the bottom of the Excel sheet to avoid that the Excel driver picks up completely empty lines and produces them as valid combinations. (this is only a small irritation but you might improve user experience by doing this).

11.3 Menu builder Creating custom labels (localized via Label Manager) will only work if you have ‘activated’ the appropriate languages (at least the English language) in custom/customizationConfig.xml (to be found within the Tomcat web instance on your WebServer) – if that is not the case your Menu Item will use the entered value of ‘Language Tag’ field as the ‘simple label’ (non-localized universal label) instead.

11.4 Search limitations for users being in too many groups There is a search limitation for non-admin users being in too many groups as of WebCenter 12.1. The limit is 1023 groups. For such users, the search cannot be performed. However this limit can be increased by changing the value of the 'lucene_max_clause_count' tag in the appconfig.xml. Keep in mind that it comes with higher memory requirements, so don't change it if you don't really need it.


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12. Solved customer issues All of following issues logged or reported by customers in WebCenter 12 or older have been fixed in WebCenter 12.1. Issue Description Issue Number Issue with screen freezing while editing rich text attributes CW158767 Viewer print dialog error CW159749 Issue with task completing unexpectedly in case of error on document with same name

CW156407

Problem with task workflow and new Java version CW157164 SDK: Problem with UploadDocument.jsp CW155491 Sporadic problem with starting up JBoss CW156466 Issue temporary files in the FileStore not being cleaned up CW156362 Issue with notifications not being sent out to all members of Approval Master group

CW154095, CW154247

Issues with the Viewer solved by introduction of new option how to run Java applet (unsigned/sandboxed)

CW151205, CW119392

Issue with display of rich text attribute field in IE CW150804, CW142119 Encoding issue on the login page CW145908 Issue in workflow with deleted items not being removed from token

CW145872

Issue with workflow not using correct email notifications CW145297 Problem displaying pagelist in the Viewer CW144136 Issue with workflow submit workflow node (AE) not returning error

CW145084

Search issue could lock database CW144127 Issue with saved search results dates not being correct CW142945 Problem with cascading attributes on My Work page CW143240 Issue with task workflows set to error after upgrade CW135855, CW140655 Issue with Collada viewer on Mac CW132088, CW126766 Issue with autonaming counter and creating two projects at the same time

CW127872, CW124456

Problem with multiple upload applet and https CW28117 In addition, the following issues reported by customers in WebCenter 12.0.2 (r161) and earlier have been fixed in WebCenter 12.0.2 update 1 (c1021) and also in WebCenter 12.1. Issue Description Issue Number Date range criteria in task search gives an error CW143258 Task assignment filter on a saved task search does not work CW142893 Problem removing a user from a group that is assigned to a lot of projects

Very slow document and task search when having a large list of documents or tasks and project criteria that matches a lot of projects. Also returning an incomplete result set if very large project set.

DT111179

Attributes loading can be slow an times out if more than 20 seconds is passed

DT109280

Chained rules break rich-text attributes CW144575 Problem with project synchronization from AE task “Create or CW143454


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modify WebCenter Project” – attributes were not passed correctly Save to Excel from project search with PM column selected fails if there are group type PMs

DT110785