Release Notes
Visma Software International Contents Table of Contents Copyright Notice... 3 Visma Approval Center 1.3... 4 New Features, Changes and Improvements... 4 Visma Approval Center 1.2.3... 7 Visma Approval Center 1.2.2... 8 Visma Approval Center 1.2.1... 9 Visma Approval Center 1.2...10 New Features... 10 Changes and Improvements...11 Visma Approval Center 1.1.1 Release Summary... 12 Visma Approval Center 1.1 Release Summary... 13 New Features... 13 Changes and Improvements...13 2
Visma Software International Copyright Notice Copyright Notice All material in this documentation and the programs it concerns are protected by copyright legislation and the specially entered into Agreement concerning usage rights and maintenance. All rights to this material are the property of Visma Software International AS.Any copying or duplication of the material in this book, including without limitations, text, screen appearance, icons or methods, is prohibited. 3
4 Visma Software International Visma Approval Center 1.3 Visma Approval Center 1.3 This section details the news, improvements and changes in version 1.3 of Visma Approval Center. Summary of Release: Visma Approval Center 1.3 offers easier and simpler configuration and set up for our customers. This version removes the pre-requisite of having a user with System Operator role for workflows to be transferred. Visma Approval Center 1.3 also provides improved task and process level monitoring and information. Search and sorting functionality has been improved. There are also user interface related improvements and a few bug fixes. New Features, Changes and Improvements New features, changes and improvements introduced in Visma Approval Center 1.3 are listed below: Simpler Set up: The set up and installation process has now been simplified. It is not necessary to have a system operator at the time of Approval Center Set-up.The workflows are transferred from Visma Document Center to Visma Approval Center even if there is no System Operator role assigned. Also tasks with unknown users or wrong email addresses are also transferred and accepted by Visma Approval Center. Such a task is then assigned the "blocked" status in Approval Center. System operator role is no longer mandatory during the set-up, however this role must be assigned at the earliest to handle blocked and overdue tasks. Whenever a task gets blocked or a workflow with an unknown user enters Visma Approval Center, the System Operator, Customer Administrator and System Administrator will be notified by email to take action. Refer to Approval Center User Guide 1.3 on How to Handle Blocked Tasks. Monitoring of Active Tasks: Visma Approval Center 1.3 provides more control over the workflow process. System Operators and System Administrators can now monitor all tasks that are in Visma Approval Center for a given company context. Tasks are now classified as: Started Tasks: Tasks that are assigned to a user and awaiting approvals. Started tasks include both blocked tasks and overdue tasks. Blocked Tasks: Tasks that are assigned to unknown users or users with no approver rights. Overdue Tasks: Tasks that are past the due date but still pending action. In Visma Approval Center 1.3 overdue tasks are not escalated to System Operator. The task will remain in the approver's task list and also be shown in the Overview Task under Task Overview. The System Operator or System Administrator can then reassign this task if needed. Planned Tasks: Tasks that have not started yet ie. tasks that will begin when approval action on a Started task is completed. Completed Tasks: Tasks on which approval actions have already been taken. System operators and System administrators can now take action on blocked tasks and overdue tasks. They can also reassign all tasks for a company. Amount field format in the accounting grid: Visma Approval Center 1.3 follows national conventions &standards on locale formats. This means that depending on the country and language combination the user chooses, the number format will vary. For example: If the user chooses the country as Norway and language as Norwegian, then the amount field will have a number format as: 1 234,56. If the user chooses the country as Norway and language as English, then the amount field will have a number format as: 1,234.56 4
Visma Software International Visma Approval Center 1.3 The user will be prompted with a message and information on the valid format for his locale, if he inputs the wrong format. Substitute Handling: When a substitute becomes active, substitutes and orginal assignees, both of them will now be able to see the assigned tasks. Both the users(original assignee and substitute) will be able to take action on the tasks. Task List: The substituted tasks in the substitute's task list will be shown with a header(on behalf of Original Assignee) indicating that the task is a substitute task. Graphical Flow: The substitute will also be shown in the graphical flow with the substitute name displayed on top of the original approver name:. When the task is completed the name of the user ( substitute or original approver) who took action on the task is shown in the graph. Textual Flow: The substitute and original approver both will be shown in the textual flow. When the task is completed the name of the user (substitute or original approver) who took action on the task is shown in the textual flow. When the substitute becomes inactive, tasks from the user he was substituting will disappear from the substitute's task list. Accounting Grid: Accounting grid will now be always open by default when a user selects a task from the task list. It is possible for the user to adjust the position of the accounting grid within the workspace(move up or down). Full Screen Task Panel:Users can now view invoices and accounting grid(task panel) in full screen mode. An icon to expand and collapse the task panel is now provided on the top task header. Improved Document Control: Documents can be now scrolled using a "grab" option in addition to existing page controls. Approval Decision Message:The confirmation message showing the approval action taken is now removed. Instead an information message is shown on top the screen. This message can either be closed by the user or it will disappear when the user selects another task from the task list. Page Rotation:It is now possible to rotate documents in the task panel clockwise or anticlockwise using the icons Java Scripting Message:Visma Approval Center requires that Java scripting be enabled on the user machine. From 1.3 if scripting is not enabled then a message is displayed to the user informing that scripting has to be enabled for the application to load correctly. Improved Search and Sorting Functionality: Search and sorting under Active and Completed Processes have been improved. Now the user can search for documents based on Document Id, Document description, Received, Last changed date and Last changed by user. A date picker has been introduced with which users can search for specific dates, dates before, dates after or provide date ranges. It is also possible to sort based on Group, ApplicationName, Acknowledged status and Attachments. Help Window: Visma Approval Center has now introduced a Help Window which contains documentation like Release Notes and User Guide. The user can click on the links to open the documents in pdf viewer. The document will open in a new tab. The user has option of saving the document using the save button in pdf viewer. 5
6 Visma Software International Visma Approval Center 1.3 Note: Note: Users will need to have Adobe Reader installed on their machines. You can download Adobe Reader from here http://get.adobe.com/reader/ Character Limit in Free Text Field of Accounting Grid: The free text field in the accounting grid has a limit of "100" characters. Earlier workflows couldn't be downloaded back in Visma Document Center if this character limit was exceeded. This is now solved and workflows will be downloaded in Visma Document Center. The text will be trimmed to 100 characters for the download. Pop-up Windows Hidden Behind HTML documents in IE8: In Visma Approval Center 1.2.3 forward, review and upload windows were hidden behind HTML documents in IE8. This is now solved and the pop-up windows are displayed above the documents. 6
Visma Software International Visma Approval Center 1.2.3 Visma Approval Center 1.2.3 Visma Approval Center 1.2.3 patch release addresses a bug fix related to Swedish language settings and Duplicate cost unit transfer from Visma Business. Concept definition System Overview and Date formats not displayed correctly with Swedish language: When the user language was selected as Swedish, the grid in the system overview page was displayed empty and also, the date format was incorrect. This is now fixed and works with all language choices including Swedish. Duplicate cost unit transfer from Visma Business: For customers using Visma Business as the ERP system, cost units were transfered in duplicates to Approval Center. Due to this, the cost units couldn't be saved in Approval Center Database. This is now fixed and Approval Center database saves all the cost units transfered. 7
8 Visma Software International Visma Approval Center 1.2.2 Visma Approval Center 1.2.2 Visma Approval Center 1.2.2 patch release addresses a bug fix related to display of accounts with empty name fields and at being compatible with Visma Document Center 5.60. Empty Account Names: When the ERP transfers account numbers with an empty account name field, Approval Center did not display it. This is now fixed and the empty account names are substituted by account numbers. For example: If the account in ERP is in the format "Account Number: Account Name" and the account entry is "1201: " then Visma Approval Center will display the account as " 1201: 1201". 8
Visma Software International Visma Approval Center 1.2.1 Visma Approval Center 1.2.1 Visma Approval Center 1.2.1 patch release addresses two issues: Some Finnish & Swedish characters are not displayed correctly: The characters ä and ö were diplayed incorrectly. This is now resolved and the characters are correctly displayed. All users with System Administrator role was excluded from Forward List: An user with both Approver and System Administrator role was excluded from the Forward list. This issue is now fixed and a User with both these roles will now appear in the Forward. Users with only "System Administrator" role is excluded. 9
10 Visma Software International Visma Approval Center 1.2 Visma Approval Center 1.2 This section details the news, improvements and changes in version 1.2 of Visma Approval Center. Summary Of Release: Visma Approval Center 1.2 introduces two new functionalities for the user: Upload of attachments and Line approval functionality. This version also introduces a new role for Support personnel- System Administrator at the Distributor level and addresses a few bug fixes. Version 1.2 is fully integrated with Visma On Demand Portal 3.3. New Features The new features developed in Visma Approval Center 1.2 are listed below: Upload of attachments for the active invoice Visma Approval Center now supports attachment of additional documents for an approval task. An approver who has an active task pending for approval can upload any document of PNG or PDF format within a total size limit of 2 MB. Once the document is uploaded it can be send on flow to other approvers and is downloadable to the host application. The user who uploaded the document can also delete the attachment. The attachment information is made available to all approvers on the flow through an information icon. Line Approval Visma Approval Center now supports line approval functionality enabling you to assign specific accounting lines to specific recipients. The host application can send lines assigned to different line approvers in Visma Approval Center. There are 3 new fields in the accounting grid: Line Approver - Shows the name of the approver to whom the line is assigned for decision making. Status - Shows the decision that has been taken at the line level. It can be either Not Evaluated/Approved/Rejected. Decision - This column provides the decision buttons for making an approval decision. There are two decision buttons: Approve and Reject. For any line, an approver can see the history and current status of the workflow through an information icon on each line in the line approver column. This gives an Approval Preview showing the Approver Name, Status, In Process Since date and Approved On dates for each line. The line where the user is line approver will have the decision buttons enabled. An approver can also create new lines in the accounting grid. The approver who creates the new line becomes the default line owner for that line. The user can then approve or reject those lines. If the line approver edits a line that is approved by another line approver, then the status of the line changes to Not Evalauted and the line owner must approve it again. If the line approver edits a line that is not approved by the line owner, then the workflow continues as-is without any changes. With the introduction of Line Approval, there can be three types of approval tasks: Only Document approval task - The approver will be able to Approve, Reject, Forward or Send the document for review independent of the line. Only Line approval task - The approver will be able to Approve or Reject the line. Line & Document approval task - The approver will be able to Approve/Reject the line independent of the document and Approve/Reject/Forward/Send the document on review. Migration to Visma On Demand Portal 3.0 Approval Center 1.2 is integrated and compatible with Visma On Demand Portal 3.X. New Support Role - System Administrator at Distributor Level A new role for support users have been introduced & is available at the Distributor level (System Administrator). This is to empower support users with a better overview of company specific issues for Approval Center. 10
Visma Software International Visma Approval Center 1.2 The System Administrator at the Distributor level will have access to the Settings & System Overview of all the companies under the given distributor context. Changes and Improvements This section decsribes changes and improvements in Visma Approval Center 1.2. Delete of newly created lines in Visma Approval Center Lines created in Visma Approval Center can now be deleted irrespective of the workflow policy or host application setting. The accounting lines that are send from the Host application can be deleted only as per the settings allowed by the host application. Time format under My History -> Active Processes The time displayed under Last Changed column was rounded off to the hour (HH:00) and hence did not display the precise time. This is now changed and the time displayed under last changed is now in HH:MM format. Time format under Event Date in Textual Flow The time displayed under Event Date column was rounded off to the hour (HH:00) and hence did not display the precise time. This is now changed and the time displayed under Event Date is now in HH:MM format. Page Resizers Documents in Visma Approval Center 1.2 can now be resized to enable better viewing based on user choice. There are two block arrows which can be used to resize the document viewer. Blank screen while saving substitutes in Opera 11 While saving substitutes in Opera browser, Approval Center displayed a blank page. This has now been solved and substitue page loads correctly on pressing save. Checkboxes in Opera browser The checkboxes in Opera browser was dispropotionate to the page size. This has now been fixed and it displays correctly. Home Window The home window has been renamed as Task List. 11
12 Visma Software International Visma Approval Center 1.1.1 Release Summary Visma Approval Center 1.1.1 Release Summary Approval Center released a patch 1.1.1 which addresses two specific bug fixes as described below: Email not working from My History and Overview Tab For an user with Approver role, Approval Center provided the option of sending emails from both the Home Tab and My History Tab. For an user with System Operator role, email option is available from Home and Overview Tab. In Approval Center1.1 the user was not able to send emails from My History and Overview Tabs. This is now fixed and users will be able to send emails from Home Tab, My history (Active & Complete processes) and Overview Tab depending on your role in Approval Center. Documents with duplicate pages not uploaded to Visma Approval Center When an user send a document with duplicate pages from Visma Document Center, Visma Approval Center rejected it with an Internal Server Error. This has now been fixed and Approval Center uploads documents with duplicate pages. 12
Visma Software International Visma Approval Center 1.1 Release Summary Visma Approval Center 1.1 Release Summary This section details the news, improvements and changes in version 1.1 of Visma Approval Center. Summary Of Release: Approval Center 1.1 focusses on increased flexibility and ease of use of the application for the end customer. Two new functionalities have been introduced which is support for electronic invoices and improved document traceability through Doc ID. This release also addresses a bug which brought up inconsistent list of users during forward and review. Approval Center 1.1 is compatible with Visma Document Center 5.50. It also addresses a few other bug fixes. A summary of the changes and improvements is shown below: Support for Electronic Invoices (HTML) Improved document traceability with Doc ID in GUI Date and Time format according to the user's time zone Compatibility with Visma Document Center 5.50 Bug fix: Inconsistent list of users displayed for multi-company customers Other bug fixes New Features The new features developed in Visma Approval Center 1.1 are listed below: Versioning Information The user can now see the version of Visma Approval Center he is working with. It is visible on the top right hand corner of the Approval Menu Bar. The current version is 1.1 Support for HTML invoices Visma Approval Center now supports HTML invoices for approval. This will be displayed as an image in Approval Center. All approval functions are supported. Display features like Zoom In, Zoom Out and Magnifier are currently not supported. Enhanced Document Traceability The customer will now have increased traceability of the documents between the host application and Approval Center. This version provides a Doc ID column under the active and complete processes pane. This Doc ID corresponds to the document ID in the host application. This will help in easy traceability and identification of the invoices between host application and Visma Approval Center. Compatibility with Visma Document Center 5.50 Approval Center 1.1 is compatible with Visma Document Center 5.X, future version - VDC 5.50 and Visma Document Center Enterprise Changes and Improvements This release includes a few changes and improvements to Visma Approval Center. The bug fixes covered in this release are listed below: Inconsistent user authorization check In Approval Center 0.98 for multi-company customers, on review and forward, all users within the customer context were shown as auto-suggestions. This is now fixed with an additional role based validation within Approval Center. Only users within the company context will be shown in auto-suggestions. Special characters Å Ø Æ not correctly displayed in comments added during forward/review action In Internet Explorer, when a task was send on review or forward special characters like Å, Ø, and Æ appeared as jumbled characters. 13
14 Visma Software International Visma Approval Center 1.1 Release Summary This is now fixed and the special characters are shown correctly. Prompt for save after edit of accounting grid If the user edited the accounting grid but did not exit the cell (did not take the cursor out) then the edit was not saved. The user assumes that the changed value that he saw was saved. This created a confusion regarding the approved values in the grid. Now if the user edits the accounting grid and moves on to click on approve or reject, he will be reminded of the changes and will be prompted for save with the message "Data has been changed.save changes?" When he clicks OK the changes get saved. Date/time displayed in comments, textual flow, my history and overview different from the user's time zone Because of the time zone change to UTC in On Demand Platform, in Approval Center 0.98 there was a discrepancy between the time shown under "my history", "system overview" and the user s country & time zone. This is now fixed to reflect the correct time zone. Now the date/time under textual flow, my history and system overview shows the users time zone. Message box too big for the screen In Internet Explorer 7, some users faced issues with the message box becoming too big on typing in the forward box. This has now been fixed and the message box retains the standard size. Users with only system admin role shown in auto-suggestions Users with only system administrator role were shown as auto-suggestions for setting substitutes, in review and forward. This is not relevant as system administrators are not part of the flow. This is fixed and users who are only system administrators will not be shown in any aspect of the flow as autosuggestions or in the list for substitutes. Header in system overview When the invoice is opened in the system overview window under active and complete processes the header will display detailed description of the task. With Supplier Name: Amount. Address used in emails When sending notification emails Approval Center used the receivers email address in the Reply To field. This is now changed to do.not.reply@visma.com When an Approver sends an email from Approval Center the receivers email address was shown in the From field. This is now changed and for the mail send by the approvers the address do.not.reply@visma.com is set in the from field and the users name is inserted as text. The user should be alerted when he approves a document but the grid he last seen was not up-to-date In Approval Center 0.98 it is possible to approve a task without having seen the up-to-date version of the accounting grid. For example in a parallel flow, if two users were making edits at the same time, the accounting grid did not show the up-to-date value to the users. This is now changed to include an alert message The data has changed since you last visited or saved." when a concurrent edit occurs in the accounting grid. Notification mail on review There were some issues with users not receiving notification emails when a task was send on review to them. This is fixed and users will now receive notification emails depending on their mail notification settings. Last Comment is not refreshed In Approval 0.98 the last comment was not automatically refreshed if the user edited the comment and directly clicked on the header menu. Now this is fixed and the comments will be refreshed and saved on every edit. Viewer pane comment not updated correctly on reload When the user approved tasks in a sequence, one after another the viewer pane did not load with the updated information on the upcoming invoices. 14
Visma Software International Visma Approval Center 1.1 Release Summary This is now fixed and the viewer pane reloads the updated invoice information. Error Codes and Error Messages for exception raised by submitwork flow When a flow is rejected by Approval Center for specific reasons, then a specific status code and an error message should be shown in the OD Bridge and Error Log. The following is the classification of the response codes: 1xx - transaction was successful 2xx - client error 3xx - server error The possible response codes are listed below: Status Code 100 OK Status Message 200 Workflow handle does not exist 201 Workflow is not in a valid state for this request 202 Company was routed to an invalid cluster 203 No system operators available for this company 204 No workflow steps in workflow 205 Company does not exist 206 Attachment mime type not supported 207 No content in attachment 208 Grid columns and rows count do not match 209 No group defined for application type 210 Description is empty 300 Internal server error Issues with sorting function under Active & Completed Processes Under Active and Completed processes there was an issue with sorting functionality not working for sort options such as Group and ApplicationName. This issue has now been fixed and sorting works with the sort options: ApplicationName: to search for existing processes for a specific type of host application, Group: to search existing processes for a specific type of document, Status: to search processes with a specific status Approved, Rejected, Cancelled, Received: to search existing processes based on the number of days there were received. 15